Download/Dp/Dp05.Pdf Newbury, Catharine.1988
TWO REBEL ROADS TO POWER Explaining Variation in the Transition from Genocidal Violence to Rebel Governance in Contemporary Rwanda and Burundi A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University By Noel Twagiramungu IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY April 2014 Dissertation Committee: Professor Peter Uvin, Co-chair Professor Eileen Babbitt, Co-chair Professor Jens Meierhenrich, Reader ii ABSTRACT Rwanda and Burundi are often considered twin countries, exhibiting almost identical historical and linguistic heritage, cultural norms and practices, and social and political structures. Equally landlocked, poor in natural resources, and aid-dependent, the two former Belgian colonial territories have since the 1990s emerged from comparable instances of genocidal violence and rebel-led transitions. Yet, these transitions occurred in radically different ways. The Tutsi- dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) came to power through a military victory and established a strong, donor-darling state with an exaggerated presence in the international arena. Burundi’s Hutu-dominated Conseil National pour la Défense de la Démocratie-Forces de Défense de la Démocratie, (CNDD-FDD) forced a Tutsi-controlled army to negotiate a power- sharing arrangement and now presides over a divided government with little influence beyond its national borders. This dissertation argues that these divergent transitions are not simply an outcome of contingent and idiosyncratic factors such as war, genocide, conflict endgame, external influences or individual leaders. Instead, the differences are better understood as the continuation of longstanding political patterns. The argument rests on four empirical findings. First, the coming into being of Rwanda and Burundi was the result of complex processual developments of political negotiation rather than instantaneous structures created whole each under one founding father.
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