Harry Verhoeven | Georgetown University (original) (raw)
Papers by Harry Verhoeven
The Journal of Modern African Studies, 2021
International affairs, May 7, 2024
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 18, 2017
This chapter lays out the book’s central argument. It first addresses the limitations of existing... more This chapter lays out the book’s central argument. It first addresses the limitations of existing explanations—war for natural resources, spillover of Rwandan genocide, anti-foreign resistance and personalization of power. It then develops the building blocks of the argument, which attributes Africa’s Great War to the type of revolutionary organization and regional alliance the comrades built to liberate Zaire. In contrast to the strong Leninist political organizations that they built during their own revolutionary struggles, the regional powers, led by the RPF, backed the emergence of a weak, personalized rebel movement heavily dependent on foreign support. This allowed the RPF to maximize its control of the AFDL and pursue its immediate priority of chasing down the génocidaires but at the cost of long-term peace. In the absence of strong domestic or regional institutions, the liberators failed to manage the vacuum of power their annihilation of the Mobutu regime brought about. Consequently, despite alignment on the goals of liberating Zaire, the post-Mobutu system would be defined by high levels of internal and external uncertainty among comrades, ending in catastrophic war.
Journal of Modern African Studies, May 22, 2023
Sudan has for decades been one of Africa's most fragmented polities. Yet arguably the single most... more Sudan has for decades been one of Africa's most fragmented polities. Yet arguably the single most consequential actor in its recent history is among the least well studied: the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF). For most of post-independence statehood, Khartoum has been ruled by generals. This article places SAF in a longitudinal context of the expansion and contraction of state power and the functions of the coercive apparatus in these processes. It situates SAF in institutional logics, driven by historically contingent ideas about the nature of the polity, the role of the army within it and its likely partners and enemies. Doing so historicises the strategic calculus of SAF during the - December Revolution which mobilised millions but ended with a new coup in October . I underscore how institutionalised rivalry between SAF and other security services has moulded patterns of regime change and consolidation: from Ja'afar Nimeiri and Omar Al-Bashir to * I wish to acknowledge two anonymous referees for their very valuable feedback and suggestions; Phil Roessler and Hazem Kandil for challenging me throughout the years to think deeply about security elites and their gestalt; and Luuk Van de Vondervoort and Mai Hassan for kickstarting renewed conversations about the Sudan Armed Forces and the December Revolution. But above all, I am indebted to half a dozen key Sudanese interlocutors from Kassala, Masid, Metemma, Muglad, Omdurman and Wad Medani who wish to remain anonymous but whose courage, intellectual dynamism and hospitality have facilitated the sometimes extremely arduous research process that underpinned the writing of this paper.
Third World Quarterly, Jan 25, 2021
Abstract Throughout the twentieth century, the ideas of Marx and Lenin were fervently listened to... more Abstract Throughout the twentieth century, the ideas of Marx and Lenin were fervently listened to, adopted, modified and confronted in Africa and Asia – an ideational and organisational reservoir still of foremost importance today, as this volume demonstrates. What socialism has meant, and still means, in theory and in practice has always been highly heterogeneous. African and Asian movements have not simply mimicked the blueprints and dogmas of Soviet or European Marxists, but have built and contextualised their own: the postcolonial metamorphosis of class and regional order; the appropriate role – if any – of religion, culture and nationalism in their societies; the organisation of political institutions and economic control mechanisms after 1989, etc. Above all, what has set socialists in African and Asian societies apart from their comrades in Europe have been three great challenges they have had to simultaneously contend with in their articulations of liberation: how to build up empirical and juridical statehood, how to forge a nation after colonial divide-and-rule, and how to position themselves in a world order not of their making. In a postcolonial world, this then begs a key question: what can African and Asian imaginaries, institutions and practices tell us about socialism as a global phenomenon?
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 18, 2017
This chapter sketches the politico-historical context in which Congo’s liberation movement, the A... more This chapter sketches the politico-historical context in which Congo’s liberation movement, the AFDL, emerged and the circumstances that shaped its character and composition from genesis. It provides background on the nature of the Congolese state, the changing international relations of Africa and the rise to power of the RPF. Importantly, it situates the Congolese experience within the Pan-Africanist liberation project as it was dreamed and godfathered by Julius Nyerere. For the Tanzanian former president and his disciples, the ousting of Mobutu represented the next logical stop in the trajectory of Africa’s liberation politics. This was an analysis shared by the RPF whose natural ideological inclinations were supercharged by the security imperative of having the génocidaires on Rwanda’s doorstep: the Front identified waging war abroad as a precondition for being able to do nation-building at home.
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Mar 12, 2015
Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2022
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 18, 2017
The military operation to unseat Mobutu forms the subject of this chapter. It opens with the blis... more The military operation to unseat Mobutu forms the subject of this chapter. It opens with the blistering assault of the Rwandan Patriotic Army on the giant refugee camps outside Goma and Bukavu. Hundreds of thousands were repatriated, but the génocidaire hard core escaped into the Congolese rainforest. The failure to eradicate this threat would prove deeply consequential: it meant that the hunt for Interahamwe in Congo competed for Kabarebe’s attention with the campaign against Mobutu, leaving little time to focus on the all-important political task of building the AFDL into a true liberation movement. This was further complicated by emerging rivalries inside the AFDL which pitted the Congolese protagonists against each other—notably Kabila versus his fellow Katangese of the Tigres Katangais—but also the RPF against their Angolan comrades of the MPLA. Though the AFDL was a Pan-Africanist affair with military support and political encadrement from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa and Zambia, the two main providers of hard muscle—Kigali and Luanda—found themselves stumbling into a “race to Kinshasa,” when AFDL troops crossed from Eastern Congo into Western Congo around the border town of Tshikapa.
Foreign Affairs, Aug 29, 2016
Routledge eBooks, Aug 19, 2022
This is a collective post written by: Ana Elisa Cascão; Alvar Closas; Emanuele Fantini; Goitom Ge... more This is a collective post written by: Ana Elisa Cascão; Alvar Closas; Emanuele Fantini; Goitom Gebreleul; Tobias Ide; Guy Jobbins; Rémy Kinna; Flávia Rocha Loures; Bjørn-Oliver Magsig; Nate Matthews; Owen McIntyre; Filippo Menga; Naho Mirumachi; Ruby Moynihan; Alan Nicol; Terje Oestigaard; Alistair Rieu-Clarke; Jan Selby; Suvi Sojamo; Larry Swatuk; Rawia Tawfik; Harry Verhoeven; Jeroen Warner; Mark Zeitoun. There is a recent and worrying trend towards a renewed “water wars” narrative in some ..
Contemporary Security Policy
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 18, 2017
Through the testimonies of civil administrators and security hawks, this chapter demonstrates the... more Through the testimonies of civil administrators and security hawks, this chapter demonstrates the repatriation of nearly a million Rwandans from the camps was not the exorcism Paul Kagame had hoped for, but rather how the opposite was true. The failure to organize screening at the border meant that within months of the return of the refugees the RPF had to confront an insurgency that engulfed the country. With thousands of soldiers deployed in Congo, it could barely stave off the existential menace of the resurgent génocidaires. This context informed how the RPF responded to Kabila’s Katangization. For Kigali, its shrinking influence in Kinshasa was a disaster, as it came just when Kabarebe needed his authority as chief of staff to send Congolese troops to destroy the resurfaced rear bases of the génocidaires in North and South Kivu. The actual divorce was accelerated when intelligence reports began showing the unthinkable was happening: in Kabila’s attempts at escaping Kabarebe’s embrace, his advisors forged links with the génocidaires and supplied them with weapons. This was a point of no return in the security dilemma facing the liberation coalition. Paul Kagame gave the green light to proceed with a regime change strategy in Congo.
Beyond Liberal Order
What happens to our understanding of liberal international order--its history, material bases and... more What happens to our understanding of liberal international order--its history, material bases and ideological claims--if we read its development not solely as a social formation built by the West and exported around the earth, but rather as an economic and political encounter with the world of the Global Indian Ocean? This chapter analyzes how the Global Indian Ocean was built and how it evolved over time: its origins in so-called "archaic globalization" as well as the shape it took following the post-1750 "Great Transformation" which, through successive waves of imperialism, spawned a first liberal international order. British-dominated hegemony was replaced after 1945 with a more ambitious system of liberal governance under American leadership. Such reworked "thin hegemony" spurred renewed integration and exchange but also violent resistance and heterodox imagination, processes that further intensified after 1989.
Multidimensional Change in Sudan (1989–2011)
The Journal of Modern African Studies, 2021
International affairs, May 7, 2024
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 18, 2017
This chapter lays out the book’s central argument. It first addresses the limitations of existing... more This chapter lays out the book’s central argument. It first addresses the limitations of existing explanations—war for natural resources, spillover of Rwandan genocide, anti-foreign resistance and personalization of power. It then develops the building blocks of the argument, which attributes Africa’s Great War to the type of revolutionary organization and regional alliance the comrades built to liberate Zaire. In contrast to the strong Leninist political organizations that they built during their own revolutionary struggles, the regional powers, led by the RPF, backed the emergence of a weak, personalized rebel movement heavily dependent on foreign support. This allowed the RPF to maximize its control of the AFDL and pursue its immediate priority of chasing down the génocidaires but at the cost of long-term peace. In the absence of strong domestic or regional institutions, the liberators failed to manage the vacuum of power their annihilation of the Mobutu regime brought about. Consequently, despite alignment on the goals of liberating Zaire, the post-Mobutu system would be defined by high levels of internal and external uncertainty among comrades, ending in catastrophic war.
Journal of Modern African Studies, May 22, 2023
Sudan has for decades been one of Africa's most fragmented polities. Yet arguably the single most... more Sudan has for decades been one of Africa's most fragmented polities. Yet arguably the single most consequential actor in its recent history is among the least well studied: the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF). For most of post-independence statehood, Khartoum has been ruled by generals. This article places SAF in a longitudinal context of the expansion and contraction of state power and the functions of the coercive apparatus in these processes. It situates SAF in institutional logics, driven by historically contingent ideas about the nature of the polity, the role of the army within it and its likely partners and enemies. Doing so historicises the strategic calculus of SAF during the - December Revolution which mobilised millions but ended with a new coup in October . I underscore how institutionalised rivalry between SAF and other security services has moulded patterns of regime change and consolidation: from Ja'afar Nimeiri and Omar Al-Bashir to * I wish to acknowledge two anonymous referees for their very valuable feedback and suggestions; Phil Roessler and Hazem Kandil for challenging me throughout the years to think deeply about security elites and their gestalt; and Luuk Van de Vondervoort and Mai Hassan for kickstarting renewed conversations about the Sudan Armed Forces and the December Revolution. But above all, I am indebted to half a dozen key Sudanese interlocutors from Kassala, Masid, Metemma, Muglad, Omdurman and Wad Medani who wish to remain anonymous but whose courage, intellectual dynamism and hospitality have facilitated the sometimes extremely arduous research process that underpinned the writing of this paper.
Third World Quarterly, Jan 25, 2021
Abstract Throughout the twentieth century, the ideas of Marx and Lenin were fervently listened to... more Abstract Throughout the twentieth century, the ideas of Marx and Lenin were fervently listened to, adopted, modified and confronted in Africa and Asia – an ideational and organisational reservoir still of foremost importance today, as this volume demonstrates. What socialism has meant, and still means, in theory and in practice has always been highly heterogeneous. African and Asian movements have not simply mimicked the blueprints and dogmas of Soviet or European Marxists, but have built and contextualised their own: the postcolonial metamorphosis of class and regional order; the appropriate role – if any – of religion, culture and nationalism in their societies; the organisation of political institutions and economic control mechanisms after 1989, etc. Above all, what has set socialists in African and Asian societies apart from their comrades in Europe have been three great challenges they have had to simultaneously contend with in their articulations of liberation: how to build up empirical and juridical statehood, how to forge a nation after colonial divide-and-rule, and how to position themselves in a world order not of their making. In a postcolonial world, this then begs a key question: what can African and Asian imaginaries, institutions and practices tell us about socialism as a global phenomenon?
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 18, 2017
This chapter sketches the politico-historical context in which Congo’s liberation movement, the A... more This chapter sketches the politico-historical context in which Congo’s liberation movement, the AFDL, emerged and the circumstances that shaped its character and composition from genesis. It provides background on the nature of the Congolese state, the changing international relations of Africa and the rise to power of the RPF. Importantly, it situates the Congolese experience within the Pan-Africanist liberation project as it was dreamed and godfathered by Julius Nyerere. For the Tanzanian former president and his disciples, the ousting of Mobutu represented the next logical stop in the trajectory of Africa’s liberation politics. This was an analysis shared by the RPF whose natural ideological inclinations were supercharged by the security imperative of having the génocidaires on Rwanda’s doorstep: the Front identified waging war abroad as a precondition for being able to do nation-building at home.
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Mar 12, 2015
Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2022
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 18, 2017
The military operation to unseat Mobutu forms the subject of this chapter. It opens with the blis... more The military operation to unseat Mobutu forms the subject of this chapter. It opens with the blistering assault of the Rwandan Patriotic Army on the giant refugee camps outside Goma and Bukavu. Hundreds of thousands were repatriated, but the génocidaire hard core escaped into the Congolese rainforest. The failure to eradicate this threat would prove deeply consequential: it meant that the hunt for Interahamwe in Congo competed for Kabarebe’s attention with the campaign against Mobutu, leaving little time to focus on the all-important political task of building the AFDL into a true liberation movement. This was further complicated by emerging rivalries inside the AFDL which pitted the Congolese protagonists against each other—notably Kabila versus his fellow Katangese of the Tigres Katangais—but also the RPF against their Angolan comrades of the MPLA. Though the AFDL was a Pan-Africanist affair with military support and political encadrement from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa and Zambia, the two main providers of hard muscle—Kigali and Luanda—found themselves stumbling into a “race to Kinshasa,” when AFDL troops crossed from Eastern Congo into Western Congo around the border town of Tshikapa.
Foreign Affairs, Aug 29, 2016
Routledge eBooks, Aug 19, 2022
This is a collective post written by: Ana Elisa Cascão; Alvar Closas; Emanuele Fantini; Goitom Ge... more This is a collective post written by: Ana Elisa Cascão; Alvar Closas; Emanuele Fantini; Goitom Gebreleul; Tobias Ide; Guy Jobbins; Rémy Kinna; Flávia Rocha Loures; Bjørn-Oliver Magsig; Nate Matthews; Owen McIntyre; Filippo Menga; Naho Mirumachi; Ruby Moynihan; Alan Nicol; Terje Oestigaard; Alistair Rieu-Clarke; Jan Selby; Suvi Sojamo; Larry Swatuk; Rawia Tawfik; Harry Verhoeven; Jeroen Warner; Mark Zeitoun. There is a recent and worrying trend towards a renewed “water wars” narrative in some ..
Contemporary Security Policy
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 18, 2017
Through the testimonies of civil administrators and security hawks, this chapter demonstrates the... more Through the testimonies of civil administrators and security hawks, this chapter demonstrates the repatriation of nearly a million Rwandans from the camps was not the exorcism Paul Kagame had hoped for, but rather how the opposite was true. The failure to organize screening at the border meant that within months of the return of the refugees the RPF had to confront an insurgency that engulfed the country. With thousands of soldiers deployed in Congo, it could barely stave off the existential menace of the resurgent génocidaires. This context informed how the RPF responded to Kabila’s Katangization. For Kigali, its shrinking influence in Kinshasa was a disaster, as it came just when Kabarebe needed his authority as chief of staff to send Congolese troops to destroy the resurfaced rear bases of the génocidaires in North and South Kivu. The actual divorce was accelerated when intelligence reports began showing the unthinkable was happening: in Kabila’s attempts at escaping Kabarebe’s embrace, his advisors forged links with the génocidaires and supplied them with weapons. This was a point of no return in the security dilemma facing the liberation coalition. Paul Kagame gave the green light to proceed with a regime change strategy in Congo.
Beyond Liberal Order
What happens to our understanding of liberal international order--its history, material bases and... more What happens to our understanding of liberal international order--its history, material bases and ideological claims--if we read its development not solely as a social formation built by the West and exported around the earth, but rather as an economic and political encounter with the world of the Global Indian Ocean? This chapter analyzes how the Global Indian Ocean was built and how it evolved over time: its origins in so-called "archaic globalization" as well as the shape it took following the post-1750 "Great Transformation" which, through successive waves of imperialism, spawned a first liberal international order. British-dominated hegemony was replaced after 1945 with a more ambitious system of liberal governance under American leadership. Such reworked "thin hegemony" spurred renewed integration and exchange but also violent resistance and heterodox imagination, processes that further intensified after 1989.
Multidimensional Change in Sudan (1989–2011)
Professor Harry Verhoeven teaches International Relations at Georgetown University and discussed ... more Professor Harry Verhoeven teaches International Relations at Georgetown University and discussed Africa’s impact on China, Middle East and global climate change.
Summary Report 24, 2018
This report provides a summary of the "Environmental Politics in the Middle East" research initia... more This report provides a summary of the "Environmental Politics in the Middle East" research initiative, which explores the geopolitics of natural resources in the Middle East in an attempt to expand the focus to include the region’s many natural resources other than natural gas, such as land, air, water, and food. Some of the issues under investigation include a focus on water scarcity, which is a global issue but one that is particularly acute in the Middle East; its impacts are examined through a case study on Yemen. Food security is studied in the case of Syria, which before the civil war began, in 2011, was one of the region’s notable food exporters. Aside from acute food shortages within Syria, the conflict has had ripple effects on the region and has led to rising food prices in neighboring states, such as Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq.