 Public Service Provision in a Failed State: Looking Beyond Predation in the Democratic Republic of CongoTheodore Trefon Review of African Political Economy, 2009, vol. 36, issue 119, 9-21 Abstract: ‘The state is dying but not yet dead’ and ‘the state is so present, but so useless’ are also commonly heard refrains. These popular sentiments, inexorably expressed in all of the country's languages by the poor and the well-to-do, have been described by development experts and political scientists as state failure. But why is the state still so powerful and omnipresent in the daily lives of these people wronged by colonial oppression, dictatorship, economic underdevelopment and more recently, unresolved political transition? How, concretely, does the state manifest itself? Does the raison d’être of the Congolese state go beyond the violence of exploitation and predation? The objective of this article is to respond to these questions, contributing to our understanding of the function and dysfunction of the Congolese state, notably during the post-Mobutu transition. Date: 2009 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:revape:v:36:y:2009:i:119:p:9-21 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/03056240902863587 Access Statistics for this article Review of African Political Economy is currently edited by Graham Harrison, Branwen Gruffydd Jones, Claire Mercer, Nicolas Pons-Vignon, Aurelia Segatti and Ray Bush More articles in Review of African Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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