Congolese Intellectuals and State Power: The Case of Les Combattants

As an examination of how Congolese intellectuals resist political power, this dissertation studies Les Combattants, a Congolese diaspora network operating primarily in Europe and North America. Vehemently opposed to Joseph Kabila’s administration, Les Combattants launched a series of post-electoral protests in 2011. Though African diasporas have increased their political activism since the end of the Cold War, their strategies and political motivations have not been sufficiently studied. Likewise, research has not thoroughly studied the role of Congolese diaspora and intellectuals in Congolese politics. This is why, in an effort toward a social theory of Congolese intellectuals and as a means for studying Les Combattants, I propose four categories by which Congolese intellectuals interact with political power: 1) entrists seek to control political power, 2) attentists wait for favorable prerequisites to participate in politics, 3) escapists focus on international distribution of power, and 4) pragmatists address polities’ concerns from the bottom-up. I used interviews, online resources, and literature review to conduct a discourse analysis of Les Combattants’ 2011 post-electoral protests. I found the following: 1) Les Combattants’ articulation of grievances against Joseph Kabila, Rwanda, and the international community contains considerable instabilities; 2) their discourse could not significantly mobilize international and domestic support, largely because it conceived political change as the result of top-down international processes; and 3) the political categories Les Combattants proposed are primarily denunciative, unable to convincingly prescribe political transformation. Furthermore, this dissertation concludes that, due to the history of political socialization, Congolese intellectuals who pursue top-down reforms tend to reproduce the status quo rather than challenge established power. Alternatively, this dissertation argues that Congolese intellectuals, at home and abroad, have an opportunity to transform Congolese politics if they directly invest in local grassroots movements and if they help concerned polities address concrete issues from the bottom-up. Keywords: International relations, African Diaspora Social Movements, African Diasporas, Congolese Diasporas, Congolese Intellectuals, School of International Service