Political governance in post-genocide Rwanda
本书系统揭露卢旺达在1994年种族灭绝后，爱国阵线如何通过国家集权、选举操控和压制公民社会来巩固威权统治，为研究当代卢旺达政治提供实证基础。
Much of how we understand present day Rwanda is either through the singular lens of its 1994 genocide, or as a praiseworthy model of African development ever since. Filip Reyntjens offers a critical corrective to such views by systematically exposing Rwanda's underbelly, marred by authoritarianism and structural violence. Largely descriptive and quite readable, the book is an ample empirical reservoir and a suitable primer for those studying contemporary Rwandan politics. Yet it also misses the mark in some respects. Reyntjens neatly arranges the book into both historical and conceptual categories. The first three chapters map the RPF's consolidation of state authority from mid-1994. This begins in Chapter 1, where postwar order came about by imposing political and territorial hegemony through the “RPF-ization” and the “Tutsization” of the state (p. 15). Chapter 2 shows how electoral politics provided a veneer of democratic legitimacy while the “RPF cartel” shelved or devoured Rwanda's political parties (p. 41). Chapter 3 then describes how the RPF created an absolutist “for us or against us” vision of Rwandan civil society (p. 61) by bolstering the tools of coercion and purging internal dissidents.