In the comparative study of African politics, scholars have devoted significant attention to understanding the set of extremely weak states on the African continent often categorized as “failed”. Much emphasis has been placed on examining the causes and consequences of state failure, but relatively little work has explored how and by whom governance functions, such as the provision of public goods, have often continued to be carried out in the context of state weakness. In fact, increasingly the provision of such goods has become the work of non-state actors, with religious organizations often playing key roles. This study examines the complex interactions of the weak state with non-state actors in public goods provision in Africa, and in particular how faith based organizations are collaborating with or replacing states that are unable to perform these tasks.

In the particular case of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the state has a long history of relegating the provision of education to religious organizations, primarily Catholic and Protestant. This study explores the changing role of Islamic organizations in the Congo from primarily marginalized spiritual institutions to collaborators with the central state and other religious communities in the operation of institutions of public education. It is based on seven months of comparative fieldwork in four Congolese towns (Kindu, Kasongo, Kisangani, and Kinshasa) during two fieldwork periods in 2008 and 2009. The research methods employed included two hundred semi-structured interviews in Swahili and French, intensive participant observation, and archival research in the libraries of the University of Kisangani.

After describing the proliferation of Muslim associations in post-conflict Congo, especially in the education sector, this study argues that this has been possible because of two primary factors, one internal and the other external. The first explanatory factor is that in recent years there has been an easing of historic tensions within the Muslim community itself. The external factor is the opportunity that this moment in post-conflict Congolese history presents as the state is too weak to govern on its own, yet increasingly democratic and allowing access to previously marginalized groups, such as the Muslim minority. (Full text of this dissertation may be available via the University of Florida Libraries web site. Please check http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/etd.html )