Social Network Analysis and the De Facto/De Jure Conundrum: Security Alliances and the Territorialization of State Authority in the Post-Cold War Great Lakes Region

This paper presents an alternative reading of the evolution of the territorialization of state authority and security alliances in Africa’s Great Lakes Region from that provided by Radil and Flint (2013). Rather than a general transformation in the direction of more territorially centralized states, patterns of state authority have remained variegated in the post-Cold War era, with continuing fracturing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is argued that Radil and Flint’s differing interpretation stems from an inappropriate application of social network analysis (SNA) to a context characterized by profound divergences between de facto and de jure phenomena and patchy data availability. These observations suggest scepticism regarding the extent to which SNA can help overcome the epistemological rifts that divide studies on the geography of politics.