Routledge Explorations in Development Studies

Northern interventions into African countries at war are dominated by security concerns; but whose security? While the concepts of a common global security and human security gained prominence in the development discourse of the 1990s, two immense wars violated Congolese territorial sovereignty, bringing disaster to the population. This book examines Congo's contemporary wars and the peace agreed in 2002 from a security perspective. It explores the apparent contradictions in the political, economic and military mechanisms of security installed at Independence. For while the 2002 peace agreed in Congo halted much of the fighting in the east of the country, it also aggravated aspects of the population's insecurity by intensifying the pre-existing threats posed by the political elite and foreign interests in Congo's resources. The book argues that the assumption of commonality within the concept of global security aggravates insecurity by overlooking the violence inherent to political processes in Congo. This empirical finding generates a theoretical contribution: security theorising is dominated by northern priorities and the realities of how people pursue security in Congo highlight lacunae within security studies and present insights of theoretical significance. This book issues empirical and analytical challenges by bringing Congolese perspectives to policy debates and academic discourse on security.