Publication

This paper proposes an analysis that discloses the various interdependencies that may exist between modes of objectifying the nation and the legitimacy of discursive strategies of nation-building in the context of a grave social conflict. The paper advances two interrelated arguments. First, it argues that the order of conflict in the Congo is contingent on the strictly symbolic efficacy of myths of identity. Second, it argues that the "charisma" of some of the country's "Big Men" is related to what the author calls the democratization of sovereignty, and neither to their supposedly exceptional individual qualities nor to a specifically African "Big Man"-syndrome.