Recipes for Intervention: Western Policy Papers Imagine the Congo

This article investigates how influential policy advice constructs a stable Congo image and upholds the belief in intervention benefits. By investigating analytical blind spots and the way counter evidence is dealt with, this article shows that current policy papers imagine the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)'s economy, politics and society in a reductionist way. The economy is seen as criminal, illegal and unproductive. The state is portrayed as weak, despite obvious examples of its influence. Finally, society is seen as dominated by sexual violence. This ‘functional pathologization’ allows for self-referential reasoning about Western interventions, security sector reform for example, and serves as a recipe to perpetuate them.

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