Hitting the Skids - The Growing Problem of State Dysfunctionality in The Central African Republic

Abstract

Over the last two years, the Central African Republic (CAR) has been running through newspaper headlines all over the world, and is present in the media almost on a weekly basis. This unusual interest of the international community in one of the poorest countries in the world has resulted from two successive civil wars: first, in 2012 the anti-government rebellion drawing together the alliance of rebel militia factions – the Seleka, and a year later the insurrection by the Anti-Balaka. However, the CAR has demonstrated state dysfunctionality features for a long time and it has been leading all possible rankings of failed states, instability, poverty, corruption etc. This article is an attempt to analyse the causes of this situation, taking into account, among other things, the author’s experience from field research in the country.