State Survival and State Struggle: The Case of Zaire and Modern Day Democratic Republic of Congo

In the literature on sub-Saharan African statehood, scholars often use phrases such as weak, failed and collapsed states. This paper addresses two of the conceptual terms frequently used in this literature, namely neopatrimonialism and clientilism in relation to so-called state weakness in the African context, on the one hand, and the Weberian, rational state as an ideal on the other. The case of Zaire and the rule of Mobutu will be used as illustration of a “nearly perfect” state in neopatrimonial terms. The paper addresses in what way the rule can be seen as neopatrimonial. Though Zaire might have been a crystal clear case of a neopatrimonial state, the formal system collapsed due partly because of its inability to nourish its increasing number of clients and the coup by a man who had successfully resisted the intrusion of the state; Laurent Kabila. Yet, the state did not “disappear” but was rather acquired by new actors. The author argues that there is a need to look at the resistance towards the state, namely actors who challenge the state’s very existence, how they make use of the state and the competing power structures that exists within the state-making – state-breaking context, as well as the competition to achieve state status. One interesting aspect of the “African state” and its periods of build-up, de-building and survival is that it continues to exist and not be necessarily transformed in significant ways.