A democratic political order after violence:

Abstract

This article delves into the predicaments of elections after violent armed conflicts as a means to rebuild broken political structures and restore a democratic political order. The article acknowledges that elections are not a guarantee for order and stability in the aftermath of political violence. Many examples of electoral engineering in post-Cold War Africa have fallen short of meaningful political reconstruction. The article proceeds with an analysis of the case of 'electocracy', the quest for a democratic dispensation through the sole path of popular elections, in the post-war Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) based on the 2006 and 2011 general elections. The article suggests that the need to conduct general elections should not take pre-eminence on the political to-do list of priorities facing a post-violence country such as today's DRC. Instead, the article argues for political institutionalization through socially emancipating politics. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract, edited]