Abstract
ABSTRACTThere is a tendency to consider covert networks as separate from overt networks. Drawing on data from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we demonstrate that this is not the case and identify how covert and overt networks are mutually constitutive. While most studies of African brokers have relied on network metaphors like ‘Big Men’ and ‘social membranes’, we consider the embeddedness of ‘covert’ networks in ‘overt’ networks explicitly. We perform two analyses on a large original dataset encompassing 396 partially overlapping ego-nets obtained from a hybrid link-tracing design. An ego-net analysis reveals a large degree of homophily and a deep embeddedness of the different networks. A multilevel exponential random graph model fitted to the reconstructed network of a 110-node subset shows that demobilised combatants are the actors likely to broker between armed groups, state forces, and civilian blocs, suggesting their capacity to broker peace or foment war.
Highlights
People living in conflict-affected states are often faced with constantly changing territorial and political control as it is challenged and negotiated between representatives of ‘the state’, armed groups, and a host of other actors and organisations
The analysis reveals a strong tendency towards homophily, between civilians, demobilised, and active combatants as well as ethno-linguistic groups
Respondents who have been members of numerous armed groups and who pursue a breadth of occupations inevitably have access to many groups
Summary
People living in conflict-affected states are often faced with constantly changing territorial and political control as it is challenged and negotiated between representatives of ‘the state’, armed groups, and a host of other actors and organisations This paper investigates the socio-economic connections that facilitate their survival in dire circumstances It aims to identify the individuals who broker between contesting state and non-state groups and organisations; whose activities hover on a spectrum between licit and illicit, legal and illegal, official and non-official, covert and overt. Their interventions often determine whether conflict escalates to war or diffuses to tentative peace. More consequentially and with very few exceptions,[3] covert networks are considered in isolation and the effectiveness of disruption is not contingent on how the covert network is embedded in overt networks
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