Abstract

Lying at the centre of a tumultuous region, the Central African Republic and its turbulent history have often been overlooked. Democracy, in any kind of a meaningful sense, has eluded the country. Since the mid-1990s, army mutinies and serial rebellion in CAR have resulted in two major successful coups. Over the course of these upheavals, the country has become a laboratory for peacebuilding initiatives, hosting a two-decade-long succession of UN and regional peacekeeping, peacebuilding and special political missions. Drawing together the foremost experts on the Central African Republic, this much-needed volume provides the first in-depth analysis of the country’s recent history of rebellion, instability, and international and regional intervention.

'[T]his book is a much-needed contribution to our understanding of the CAR crisis.'
African Affairs

'Bringing together the most prominent experts, this book provides a unique, compelling and definitive analysis of the deeply rooted political crisis in the CAR. With no issue left untouched, it is essential reading for anyone interested in, or dealing with the current conflict.'
Koen Vlassenroot, Ghent University

'This is the essential book on CAR. Tatiana Carayannis and Louisa Lombard have assembled the scholars and analysts who know most about this important but under-researched country, and have produced the authoritative volume on its history, society and politics.'
Alex de Waal, author of Darfur and Advocacy in Conflict

'Carayannis and Lombard definitively depict what Africans call "the heart of the continent" not as a blank spot on colonial maps, nor as an aberrant absence or failure of contemporary national and international governance, but rather as a complex "hive" of geopolitical, cultural and economic rivalries and alliances key to Africa's prosperity and stability in coming decades. It is a boldly executed and timely corrective to much recent media and policy analysis on civil conflict and prospects for sustainable peace in the Central African Republic.'
Rebecca Hardin, University of Michigan

Tatiana Carayannis is deputy director of the Social Science Research Council’s Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum. She also directs the SSRC China-Africa Knowledge Project and is a research director of the LSE-based consortium, the Justice and Security Research Programme. A political scientist and seasoned field researcher, she is widely published on political mobilization and rebel governance, and UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding in Central Africa, particularly the DRC. She co-authored UN Voices: The Struggle for Development and Social Justice (2005) with Thomas G. Weiss, Louis Emmerij, and Richard Jolly, and is currently completing her next book, Pioneers of Peacekeeping: ONUC, 1960-1964. Louisa Lombard is an assistant professor of anthropology at Yale University. She has worked in CAR as a field consultant to several international organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Small Arms Survey, Refugees International and the World Bank, in addition to her academic research. She is currently finishing two books about the country, one an ethnographic and historical account of the ‘stateless’ east, and the other an anthropological take on war and rebellion over the past decade.