DRC: An Achilles' Heel for Kagame? A Theory of Paranoid Leadership in Post-Genocide Rwanda
Posted: 21 Mar 2016 Last revised: 11 Oct 2016
Date Written: 2016
Abstract
Throughout his triumphant road to power in 1994 and then during the first six years of his reign as the true strong-man of Kigali, Paul Kagame contented himself to lead by behind the scenes. Why then, suddenly in 2000, did he rise to the presidency and impose a state machinery of excessive control centered around himself which culminated in the constitution amendment that allows him to stay in power beyond his 2017 term limits? This paper theorizes this shift as a defining moment in the rise of Kagame's leadership style whose characteristics meet the definition of what psychologists call Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, namely, a "disorder characterized by a preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal control, at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency." Findings suggest that Kagame's OCPD-driven leadership is best understood as a traumatic response to four successive shocks whose combined effects made the DRC something of an Achilles heel for Kagame's political career: (i) Kabila's repudiation of Kagame's patronage in early 1998; (ii) Kagame's failed second invasion of Congo in 1998; (iii) resurgence of the Hutu militias known as "infiltrators" followed by popular uprising in northern Rwanda in 1998-2000; and, (iv) the bloody battles of Kisangani between Rwandan and Ugandan armies on the Congolese soil in 1990 and 2000. The analysis builds on empirical evidence to explain why Kagame perceived these shocks along with their consequences as serious threats to his personal strength and why he deemed total and brutal control as the only way of covering up his increasing vulnerability.
Keywords: Kagame, Rwanda, Paranoid, leadership, OCPD, DRC
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