Roadblock politics : the origins of violence in Central Africa

"Along the muddy roads and forested rivers snaking through Central Africa, rebels and soldiers, traditional authorities and civil servants, erect roadblocks where they deploy the threat of violence to impose their will on passersby. This book takes a journey along those roadblocks, on the way offering an exploration of the hitherto invisible web of politics with which these roadblocks mesh-roadblock politics. If established approaches to state-making often emphasize power as having to do with centralized control over territory and population, this book offers a conception in which control over the movement of people and goods is central to patterns of state formation and conflict. Given that part of what travels along Central African roadblocks tangles into global supply chains, this book is then also by necessity an exploration of the politics of global trade and how it links to patterns of conflict and violence in Central Africa, historical and contemporary. Roadblock Politics thus puts roadblocks on the map not only as a pervasive phenomenon with certain empirical features, but also as a key political technique in the struggle to shape mobile economies that extend far beyond the region, ultimately linking to far-flung places"-- Provided by publisher There are so many roadblocks in Central Africa that it is hard to find a road that does not have one. Based on research in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR), Peer Schouten maps more than a thousand of these roadblocks to show how communities, rebels and state security forces forge resistance and power out of control over these narrow points of passage. Schouten reveals the connections between these roadblocks in Central Africa and global supply chains, tracking the flow of multinational corporations and UN agencies alike through them, to show how they encapsulate a form of power, which thrives under conditions of supply chain capitalism. In doing so, he develops a new lens through which to understand what drives state formation and conflict in the region, offering a radical alternative to explanations that foreground control over minerals, territory or population as key drivers of Central Africa's violent history. Using the roadblock as an entry point, Schouten delves into the turbulent history and ongoing conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR), offering a unique approach to what drives state formation and conflict in the region - one revolving around control over movement instead of territory or people.