12 - The Political Economy of Lawfare

Summary

Chapter 12 concludes the book and ties its different strands together. It explains why, and when, lawfare came to be seen by leading RPF cadres as a functional equivalent to warfare. The chapter further explains why Rwanda’s present resembles its past to a remarkable degree. More specifically, the analysis demonstrates that the government of threat and care in the twenty-first century was informed by a raison d’état that has driven the imposition of grand institutional designs ever since the precolony. What this concluding chapter offers is a path-dependent argument about the rise of lawfare in post-genocide Rwanda. As such, it illustrate the analytic payoff of taking the study of the country’s gacaca courts out of the context of transitional justice.