This Working Paper develops a political sociology of roadblocks to demonstrate how roadblocks in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) contribute to the production and reproduction of public authority. Using a dramaturgical approach, we show how during roadblock encounters, public authority is instantaneously produced through the joint performances of roadblock agents, roadblocks and road users.
Drawing on structuration theory, we show how these performances are scripted by social structures–namely, norms, discourses and power relations–which imbue them with meaning and shape the agency of those involved. Because most roadblock encounters remain within the parameters of well-defined scripts, they ultimately contribute to the reproduction rather than the transformation of the structures that script public authority in the DRC–regardless of who exercises it.
Our approach offers a refined conceptualisation of agency during roadblock encounters, which provides a better understanding of when and why people comply with demands made by roadblock operators and of the cumulative effects of the micro-practices enacted at roadblocks on broader sociopolitical orders.
This paper is the seventh in a new working paper series on Roadblocks and revenues, a collaboration between ICTD, the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), and the Centre on Armed Groups (CAG).
The working paper series is generously funded by the Carlsberg Foundation under the Semper Ardens: Accelerate grant ‘TRADECRAFT’. Read more about the project here.
- Read the first paper, which introduces the working paper series, here;
- The second one, which focuses on cross-border trade and state formation in Afghanistan, here;
- The third, on the political economy of opium flows in Burma/Myanmar, here;
- The fourth, on criminal group checkpoints governing cross-border smuggling between Colombia & Venezuela, here;
- The fifth, on how checkpoints drive increasing autonomy in the Myanmar civil war, here;
- And the sixth, on checkpoints, fragmentation, and social differentiation in Somalia here.
