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Paper short abstract:

I contrast changes in international narratives with continuities of national and local politics. Whereas the international approach towards the Central African Republic shifted from insurgency to crisis to geopolitics, the internal allocation of power and resources showed continuity.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past twenty years the international approach towards the Central African Republic has shifted dramatically. Depictions range from insurgency, rebellion, crisis, post-conflict to geopolitical playing field. Yet these are superficial narratives as underlying functioning of power and resource allocation in CAR shows remarkable continuity. Long-held political trends of neglecting the peripheries, pluralizing the means and use of violence internally and externally, and power circulating in a closed elite group centred in Bangui permeate the past 20 years of shifting international engagement. In 2003, Bozizé took power through a coup d’état supported by Chad and France. Ensuing violent contestations were framed as an insurgency legitimating French military intervention. Narratives shifted as Bozizé became more apparently autocratic and less amenable to France – successor armed movements in 2012 now enjoyed the label of rebels, legitimizing non-intervention. The new rebel government was brutally violent. The international narrative shifted to crisis, enabling the deployment of a massive peacekeeping mission, the installment of an unaccountable transitional government, and leading huge humanitarian engagement. Upon elections in 2016 the narrative shifted to post-conflict albeit no root causes having been addressed. The international engagement focused on restoring the state’s capacities in flagrant amnesia of the state security sectors’ pre-crisis abuses. When the new Government turned towards Russia as of 2018, the country was described as the playing field of geopolitical struggle, justifying the reduction of budget aid and diplomatic endeavors. In this paper I contrast changes in international narratives with the continuities of national and local politics.