Democracy & the money machine in Zaire

Abstract

Whether or not Mitterand's famous thesis that ‘there can be no democracy without development and no development without democracy‘1is correct, Zaire during the 1990s was a clear case demonstrating the absence of a close relationship between development and democratisation. On the contrary, the announcement that political leaders might be facing electoral defeat could be considered as one of the most important background elements determining the climate of sauve qui peutduring the early 1990s. The dynamics of such an end‐game situation are well‐known in the literature on experimental game theory: only the most stubborn or naive actors will still abstain from using all the means at their disposal to maximise their short‐term interests. We document this situation by studying Zaire's monetary politics during the early 1990s. First, we describe the most impressive phenomena creating the monetary landscape: hyperinflation, monetary games, a fake monetary reform and counterfeit money. We then analyse these phenomena in connection with the dynamics of the political arena of the period and, in particular, the prospect of democratisation.