SOAS Research Online

Abstract

A core tenet of contemporary aid is that development, democracy and security reinforce each other. This tenet is often explicit in policy designed for countries that have experienced violent conflict and in which there is widespread destitution and devastated political and physical infrastructure. Correspondingly, mainstream northern analysis of African states and their trajectories following war rests on the assumption of linear progressions from distorted to liberal economies, dictatorship to democracy , and war to peace. Rwanda’s recent history provides evidence that counters this assumption. Since the genocide that took place in the country in 1994, and under the political leadership of President Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s economic and social development indicators have been impressive, political opposition has been muted, and these outcomes have been shored up by the violence inflicted in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Rwanda has operated through military or militia forces, aggravating regional insecurity.