German Institute for Global and Area Studies | Leibniz-Institut für Globale und Regionale Studien

German Institute for Global and Area Studies | Leibniz-Institut für Globale und Regionale Studien

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Rebellion, Elections and the Pandemic in the Central African Republic: COVID-19 and its Impact on Deep-seated Patterns of Governance

  • The COVID-19 pandemic reaches the Central African Republic (CAR) just when citizens were passing milestones for ending the country's conflicts through a peace agreement and national elections. A new rebellion broke out in late 2020 that hindered medical access to some of the most impoverished areas. An interplay of rebellion, elections and containing the pandemic have become the critical triangle deciding whether CAR can overcome its deep-seated patterns of governance that are stifling political and economic progress.
    DFG, 2021-2022

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    Research Questions

    In how far has the COVID-19 pandemic deepened or ruptured CAR’s governance patterns?

    Contribution to International Research

    It lies in the nature of the deep-seated patterns of governance – outsourced politics, a plurality of violence and peripheral neglect – that research on the CAR even more than in other countries depends on gaining insights from beyond the capital. We will thus use the security arena concept to study changing current patterns of governance on the local level. The security arena is foremost a conceptual tool for comparison, keeping assumptions to a minimum, while drawing on only a few dimensions for meaningful comparison. The security arena is broadly reduced to two relational dimensions – actors and their interactions – around a spatial dimension and thereby grants common lines for comparison across contexts.

    Research Design and Methods

    To study changing patterns of governance during the pandemic on a national level we conduct telephone interviews with key stakeholders from government, the UN mission, NGOs, and civil society. On a local level we use our well-established networks to collect data remotely (and if the pandemic permits, in person) in two peripheral localities and the capital.

    Project Publications

    Small Wars and Insurgencies | 2023

    Rebel Governance or Governance in Rebel Territory? Extraction and Services in Ndélé, Central African Republic

    Rebel governance assumes a symbiotic relationship between coercion and public goods provision. However, in the rebel-held town of Ndélé, Central African Republic, we find that governance happens in rebel-held territory, but rarely by rebels.

    Dr. Tim Glawion

    Associate

    Anne-Clémence Le Noan

    Peacebuilding | 05/2022

    Cross-Case Patterns of Security Production in Hybrid Political Orders: their Shapes, Ordering Practices, and Paradoxical Outcomes

    Studying 12 cases across the Central African Republic, Haiti, Somaliland, and South Sudan, I investigate (1) where hybrid interactions take place, (2) how they happen and (3) what this means for people’s security.

    Dr. Tim Glawion

    Associate

    Blog Article | 05/2022

    Wacklige Partnerschaft: Die Zentralafrikanische Republik ist mehr als nur geopolitischer Nebenschauplatz. Europa muss sich als ernsthafte Alternative zu Russland anbieten.

    Dr. Tim Glawion

    Associate

    The Conversation | 09/2021

    What it will Take to End Civil War in the Central African Republic

    Dr. Tim Glawion

    Associate

    Monograph | Cambridge University Press | 2020

    The Security Arena in Africa: Local Order-Making in the Central African Republic, Somaliland, and South Sudan

    The labels 'state fragility' and 'civil war' suggest that security within several African countries has broken down. As Tim Glawion observes, however, while people do experience insecurity in some parts of conflict-affected countries, in other areas they live in relative security.

    Dr. Tim Glawion

    Associate

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