Soldiers Without an Army? Patronage Networks and Cohesion in the Armed Forces of the DR Congo

• Date: 01 October 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17740096
• Published date: 01 October 2018
• Subject Matter: Forum on Cohesion

Forum on Cohesion
Armed Forces & Society
2018, Vol. 44(4) 626-646
Soldiers Without an
ª The Author(s) 2017
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
Army? Patronage
DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17740096
journals.sagepub.com/home/afs
Networks and Cohesion
in the Armed Forces of
the DR Congo
Judith Verweijen1
Abstract
This article analyzes the effects of patronage networks on cohesion in the Armed
Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It shows that while patronage
networks provide support to individual military personnel, they undermine both
peer and commander–subordinate bonding. They promote unequal service condi-
tions and statuses and link these to extra-unit and extra-military forms of social
identification, which are further reinforced by soldiers’ living and generating revenue
among civilians. Furthermore, they impair meritocracy and frustrate the extent to
which commanders live up to their subordinates’ expectations. As they fuel internal
conflicts, often around revenue generation, and foster bad service conditions and
distrust toward the political and military leadership, patronage networks also
undermine institutional cohesion. The article concludes that cohesion formation in
the FARDC follows different patterns than in well-institutionalized and well-
resourced militaries. Given that cohesion impacts combat performance and norm
enforcement, these findings are relevant for defense reform efforts and military
cooperation.
Keywords
cohesion/disintegration, sociology, military organization, Africa
1 Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Corresponding Author:
Judith Verweijen, Ghent University, Universiteitstraat 8, Ghent, 9000, Belgium.
Email: judith.verweijen@ugent.be

---

Verweijen
627
The burgeoning military sociological literature on cohesion, or bonding “between
service members and their group, organization, and service institution” (Siebold,
2007, p. 288), has been criticized for being predominantly grounded in research on
western armed forces with high degrees of legal-bureaucratic institutionalization
(Ka¨ihko¨, 2016). Its premises may therefore not be fully applicable to armed forces
in other contexts and with other characteristics. In particular, it may miss out on
specific factors or processes shaping cohesion in these militaries. One such factor is
patronage networks. While patron–client relations can be found in most armed
forces, they are much more salient in certain militaries than in others (Howe,
2001). A good example of a force where patronage networks shape military func-
tioning to a considerable extent is the Forces Arme´es de la Re´publique De´mocra-
tique du Congo (FARDC, Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo).
In the FARDC, formal command chains intersect and overlap with patronage net-
works that tie military personnel via personal bonds of loyalty to particular patrons-
cum-officers who may or may not be their official superiors (Verweijen, 2013).
While it is likely that such ties affect relationships between military personnel, there
is surprisingly little research on how they impact cohesion.
This article analyzes how patronage networks affect cohesion within the FARDC,
looking at both the microlevel of primary (sections and platoons) and secondary
(battalions and brigades) groups and the mesolevel of the armed forces as a whole. It
also explores macro-level influences on cohesion, analyzing the wider sociopolitical
order of which the armed forces form part. It finds that while patronage networks
provide crucial support to individual military personnel, they tend to undermine
bonding between military personnel of equal rank as well as between subordinates
and their superiors. By fostering differential treatment and service conditions,
patronage ties accentuate differences between same-rank military personnel, in par-
ticular when these ties connect to extra-unit forms of social identification (e.g.,
ethnoregional or ex-rebel backgrounds). Patronage networks also impair merito-
cratic appointments and induce commanders to treat their troops unequally. Further-
more, they promote asymmetries in wealth between commanders and their
subordinates, which the latter experience as disproportionate. At the institutional
level too, patronage networks negatively affect cohesion. They reinforce parallel
command chains, divided loyalties and competition, notably around access to posi-
tions and resources. Additionally, by promoting bad service conditions and antag-
onism toward the top political and military leadership, seen to be implicated in
unscrupulous revenue generation due to patronage-related pressures, they also
undermine soldiers’ bonding with the military organization at large. Identification
with the FARDC is also lessened by patronage networks’ crosscutting character,
implying they encompass both soldiers and civilians, and by the Congolese army’s
limited efforts to socialize its members into professional discourses and identities.
Grasping the effects of patronage on military cohesion is important for both
theoretical and policy reasons. First, studying patronage networks deepens an under-
standing of the processes and factors commonly identified to impact cohesion in

---

628
Armed Forces & Society 44(4)
military settings, including their relative causal weight. It may also provide new
insights into how other conditions that often combine with low levels of legal-
bureaucratic institutionalization affect military cohesion, such as armed forces’
involvement in economic activities, their not approximating a “total institution”
(Goffman, 1961), and processes of rebel–military integration. Second, understand-
ing how patronage affects cohesion is crucial for guiding and assessing processes of
defense reform and military collaboration more widely. Cohesion shapes both mil-
itary performance and, by impacting norm enforcement, soldiers’ behavior toward
civilians, including their propensity to engage in abuses (Siebold, 2007). A better
insight into these dimensions of military functioning may render reform efforts more
effective and may facilitate military-to-military cooperation, for instance, within the
framework of peacekeeping missions.
The article is structured as follows. The next section discusses the concept of
military cohesion, which is followed by a brief explanation of the employed meth-
ods. Subsequently, a snapshot is provided of the history of the FARDC. The next
parts explore the effects of patronage networks on institutional cohesion, bonding
between same-rank military, and commander–subordinate bonding, respectively.
The concluding section offers reflections on the theoretical and policy relevance
of the findings.
Cohesion in Military Settings
Within military sociology, views differ on how cohesion should be defined, oper-
ationalized, and measured (Bartone, Johnsen, Eid, Brun, & Laberg, 2002; King,
2013; Siebold, 1999, 2011). Attempting to synthesize decades of research into a
broad general framework, Siebold (2007) proposes a “standard model of military
group cohesion.”1 For Siebold, cohesion relates to a relationship structure with
both affective and instrumental dimensions that establishes mutual trust and loy-
alty. This relationship structure impacts military conduct and motivation by facil-
itating collective action and promoting adhesion to group norms. It is (re)produced
by both formal and informal social interaction, which may be either interpersonal
or collective. Furthermore, it encompasses both task and social cohesion, seen to
partly overlap (Siebold, 2011). Social cohesion relates to whether group members
like each other, hence refers to the nature and quality of emotional bonds of
friendship, as based on personal characteristics. Task cohesion, in turn, refers to
commitment to a common mission that requires collective action to accomplish
(MacCoun, 1993).
In Siebold’s model, cohesion in military organizations consists of four interre-
lated components. The first two constitute primary group cohesion and consist of
horizontal cohesion (ties between soldiers at approximately the same level of the
hierarchy) and vertical cohesion (relations between subordinates and their immedi-
ate commanders). The second two constitute secondary group cohesion and relate to
organizational cohesion (the relations between military personnel and their

---

Verweijen
629
overarching unit of organization, like a battalion or brigade) and institutional cohe-
sion (the relations between soldiers and their overall organizational branch or the
armed forces in general).
Military sociologists and other scholars have identified a wide array of factors
that shape cohesion, although views on the most relevant dimensions and causal
mechanisms diverge (Bartone et al., 2002; Siebold, 1999). To facilitate the analysis
of how these factors shape cohesion in the FARDC, and are influenced by patronage
networks, they were regrouped into four clusters (for a further elaboration, see
Verweijen, 2015).
The first cluster of factors, which shapes both peer and commander-subordinate
bonding, is named after Shils and Janowitz’s (1948) notion of “community of
experience.” It relates to the length and characteristics of troops’ living, training,
and operating together, hence predominantly to social interaction. Contrary to Shils
and Janowitz’s (1948) interpretation, it excludes “homogeneity of origins”, based on
the consideration that while social identification is shaped by social interaction, it
cannot be equated by it. “Community of experience” encompasses the following
factors: (1)...