Business of civil war : new forms of life in the debris of the Democratic Republic of Congo / Patience Kabamba.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-230).

Print version record.

Introduction -- "The failed state" : a hegemonic discourse? -- The emergence of the Nande : a socio-political history -- Theoretical issues in the Nande trading networks -- Strategies and structural frameworks that facilitated economic growth in the Nande Region -- Playing the ethnic card in the formation of a postcolonial African state -- The elite question -- Gold and guns : protecting capitalist investment during social fragmentation and violence -- Nande trust networks in new globalised relations : invention of post-postcolonial state? -- Conclusion.

Within the context of the absence of effective state sovereignty and the presence of numerous armed struggles for power, Nande traders have managed to build and protect self-sustaining, prosperous, transnational economic enterprises in eastern Congo. This book discusses the commercial enterprises of the Nande trust networks and the subsequent transnational community they have produced, thereby challenging the assumption that a "weak state" or a "failed state" or even a "collapsed state" can be presumed to signal a "failed" society. It demonstrates the fact that several sovereignties and property right systems can coexist side by side, reinforcing each other - an idea which seems inconceivable for those with a normative view of governmental institutions and state sovereignty.

English.

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