Join us for a seminar with Peer Schouten around his new book Roadblock Politics: the Origins of Violence in Central Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2022), which traces how roadblocks have become the main interface linking global trade to local conflict economies in Central Africa and beyond. There are, in fact, so many roadblocks in Central Africa that it is hard to find a road that does not have one. Schouten’s book argues that roadblocks aren’t just a symptom of corruption or state failure but encapsulate a distinct and meaningful form of order-making. His book reveals the connections between these roadblocks in Central Africa and global supply chains, tracking the flow of multinational corporations and UN agencies alike through them, to show how they encapsulate a form of power, which thrives under conditions of supply chain capitalism. The book also traces how crucial control over long-distance trade has been in the deep history of the region. In doing so, he develops a new lens through which to understand what drives state formation and conflict in the region, offering a radical alternative to explanations that foreground control over minerals, territory or population as key drivers of Central Africa's violent history.

Peer Schouten (PhD) is a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies and associate researcher at the International Peace Information Service. His research focuses on the political economy of conflict in Africa, with a focus on how local forms of order-making entangle with global actors and dynamics. As such, he has published widely on the links between business and conflict, infrastructure and statebuilding, extractive industries, and on roadblocks—all grounded in an empirical commitment to Central Africa.

This event is brought to you in association with the Department of Political Science and International Relations at UniGE and  the Geneva Africa Lab. This event will be chaired by Didier Peclard (Unige), with comments by Hélène Blaszkiewicz (Unige), Aidan Russell (IHEID), and Anna Leander (IHEID).