Introduction
The state is often portrayed as a coherent organisation that controls a specific territory and represents the people within this territory. This is also the dominant paradigm shaping policies of post-conflict state reconstruction. The paradigm has recently been challenged, however, by empirically founded studies pointing to the varieties of statehood that can be found in both ‘failed’ and ‘accomplished’ states (Hagmann and Hoehne 2009, Hameiri 2007). The DRC is a case in point: although the country has been described as ‘a total vacuum of authority’ or ‘a black hole into which a failed polity has fallen’ (Rotberg 2002, p. 90), the reality is in fact one of ‘negotiated state(ness)’ as described, amongst others, by Menkhaus (2006), Raeymaekers et al. (2008) and Hagmann and Péclard (2010). This expression underlines the ‘co-existence of multiple public authorities’ linked to ‘multiple parcels of authority’ within the public sphere, each giving their own meaning to authority and political power (Arnaut and Hojbjerg 2008, Lund 2006, p. 694). These various ‘power poles’, as Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan (1997) call them, interact and negotiate with each other over the everyday governance of public services. As such, they are all involved in ‘doing the state’, and importantly, both in cooperation and competition (Hagmann and Péclard 2010). Strategically positioned actors might simultaneously cooperate on certain matters and compete on others; this continuous negotiation is what determines the actual functioning of public-service delivery. The notion of ‘negotiated state(ness)’ also underlines the permanent negotiation between different centres of authority and indicates that the production of a public service depends upon different processes of negotiation with non-state authorities, to provide certain governmental functions (Raeymaekers et al. 2008, p. 17). It is important to recognise that these processes of negotiated statehood involve actors with unequal power positions. Such power differentials affect both the outcome of this ‘negotiated stateness’ and how governmental functions are delivered (Titeca and De Herdt 2011).
These factors shape the relationship between the state and the church. A significant body of work exists on the relationship between the state and the church, and the political role of the church in Africa (Haynes 1996, Sabar-Friedman 1997, Marshall 2009, Philpott 2004, Van Hoywegen 1996). Churches (and religious movements in general) can at times become ‘voices of democracy and protest’ (Manglos 2011, p. 336) and can more generally play important public roles (Ellis and Ter Haar 1998, 2004). In this context, churches also provide an important role in the provision of social services (Hearn 2002). However, discussions of the relationship between the church and the state have been conspicuously absent from current debates of state (re)construction in Africa. This absence may reflect the emphasis in this state (re)construction literature on the macro-level, notwithstanding frequent pleas to engage in empirical research and study ‘new forms of governance beyond the state’ (Engel and Mehler 2005, cited in Hagmann and Hoehne 2009, p. 44). The literature on the ‘negotiated state’ has a clearer empirical focus, analysing for example negotiations between rebels and traders (Raeymaekers 2007, 2010), government and traders (Menkhaus 2008), the centre and the periphery (Kefale 2010), and so on. In this literature, the church as a pole of power has been largely absent. Both ‘the church’ and ‘the state’ represent vital poles of authority in many African countries, sharing a history of cooperation and competition typically stretching back to colonial times (Gifford 1994). This article focuses on the relationship between the state and the Catholic Church, the biblical Caesar and God, in the context of the education sector in the DRC.1 In doing so, we want to gain a better understanding of the day-to-day functioning of the state and public services in the DRC. Concretely, the paper does so by discussing the ‘Fonds Commun de Solidarité (FCS) or ‘joint solidarity fund’. The FCS was an initiative taken by the Catholic educational network for the city of Kinshasa at the start of the 2008–09 school year to introduce uniform school fees. The FCS initiative was an important incident in the relationship between the church and the state, allowing an analysis of the ability and willingness of different actors to ‘take issue’ with the initiative and to mobilise their resources to react.
To engage in an analysis of the evolving balance of forces between the church and the state, it is useful to remember Max Weber's classical distinction between power and domination. Weber defined power as ‘the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance’ (1978, p. 53). For Weber, power contrasts with domination or authority, i.e. ‘the probability that a command will be obeyed’ (1978, p. 53). In contrast to the case of power, people do not adopt a course of action contrary to their own will because they genuinely accept obedience; the disciplining is at least partly done by themselves. In reality of course, different sources of power and of domination often combine. At face value at least, the religious and the bureaucratic-state modes of governance2 mobilise quite different sources of authority to increase the probability of genuine obedience. But both institutions also wield considerable sources of power which can be mobilised to increase the probability that other actors carry out the will of the state or the church, and not their own.
Although he does not refer to Weber's classical distinction, power and domination each play a role in Paul Gifford's (1994) explanation of the relatively weak position of the mainstream churches vis-à-vis the state in contemporary Africa. First, Gifford argued that these churches have been weakened as African states wielded greater sources of power, enabling the latter to co-opt the former. Given that these churches have been among the most significant nation-wide institutions in almost all African countries, their voice has political significance, but granting them privileges and favours provided a means for the state to keep this ‘voice’ in check. Jean-François Bayart likewise suggests that while conflicts between the sphere of God and the sphere of the state have been paramount, ‘what is nevertheless surprising is the more or less great ease with which compromise and reconciliation is eventually restored’ (1989, p. 12).
But negotiations between the churches and the state do not play out solely in terms of power. A second hypothesis advanced by Gifford brings in the factor of domination: churches ‘have been greatly influenced by the “Big Man” model of leadership which has characterised African regimes’ (Gifford 1994, p. 43, Haynes 1996). By replicating the ‘Big Man’ model, church leaders mobilise another authoritative resource than mere religion, in which they have been able to use mechanisms such as ‘tribalism, abuse of authority, misappropriation of funds and so on’ (Gifford 1994, p. 44) and through which they mirror the ways in which African state regimes exercised their authority (and through which state incumbents mobilised another authoritative resource than mere bureaucracy). Here Gifford again concurs with Jean-François Bayart's analysis that the authority of the churches is partly founded in the ‘ecclesiology of the chefferie’ (1989, p. 12), partly in the ‘ethos of munificence, inherent in the politics of the belly’ (1989, p. 10), the very same sources of authority Bayart identifies at the heart of state authority in Africa.
Both the church and the state are depicted here as ‘twilight institutions’ (Lund 2006). Even if, on the face of it, the state and the churches rely on distinct sources of authority, in reality state incumbents and church representatives draw on a mixture of authoritative resources. Their underlying logic is also similar: institutional actors ‘have to get along in a network of already established forces and representations’ (de Certeau 1984, p. 18) and hence, in order for the subjects to genuinely accept to obey, the source of authority is partly negotiated. However, the dilemma faced by the churches in relation to the state is that while mobilising the Big Man model of leadership as an authoritative resource may, internally increase the probability of obedience, externally it weakens the churches' authority to oppose the state. How credible are church criticisms of the state for abuse of authority and corruption if, by mobilising similar authoritative resources, it makes itself vulnerable to the same accusation?
In sum, in their modes of governance, the state and the church both rely on a variety of sources of authority and sources of power. Importantly, these modes of governance do not exist in a vacuum, and are affected both by other poles of power (e.g. how initiatives of the church are accepted or not by the state) and by the difficulties they experience within their own (e.g. within the church or state). The way in which their authority manifests itself is not static, but depends on the way it is received by its subjects. In this way, different levels of negotiation take place: between the poles of power (the church and state), but also within the poles of power themselves, regarding who wishes to have their authority accepted.
To illustrate how different sources of power and forms of domination play out between the church and the state in DRC, it is useful to focus on a specific incident, taking inspiration from the Foucauldean idea that ‘the forces in play in history obey neither an intention nor a mechanism, but rather the contingency of the conflict’ (Foucault, cited in Bayart 1998, p. 15, authors' translation). Thus, political actors' political capabilities can best be identified ‘in the process’ of an unfolding event. This article accordingly analyses the Fonds Commun de Solidarité (FCS) or ‘joint solidarity fund’. This initiative was identified as particularly significant because (1) it covered the whole city of Kinshasa; and (2) if successful, it would imply a major shift in the (economic) power wielded by the church, depriving state education personnel of important salary complements, namely school fees. Both schools and the state education bureaucracy depend on these fees to pay salaries. The article focuses on the first year of the initiative, an intense period of change; this change was much less significant thereafter. This year can be considered an ‘open moment’, when ‘the social rules and structures are suddenly challenged and the prerogatives and legitimacy of politico-legal institutions cease to be taken for granted’ (Lund 1998, p. 2). By studying these ‘particularly intense periods of rearrangement of the social order’ (Lund 1998, p. 1), we gain insight into processes of authority and political control, and how they are questioned, challenged and possibly redefined (Wagemakers and Makangu 2011). The different levels of negotiation described above became more visible during this period.
This article arises from a larger research project on the primary-school sector in the DRC (reported in De Herdt 2011). The study combined qualitative research at the micro-level, and secondary sources, national-level surveys and macro-data, focusing on a particular Foucauldean incident. The introduction of the Fonds Commun de Solidarity (FCS) was studied both as it was conceptualised and perceived by the relevant policy actors (of the church and the state) and as it was experienced at the local level, within Catholic and other schools. Interviews were conducted with policy actors throughout Kinshasa and local-level studies were conducted at a set of schools in Kimbanseke (one of the largest communes and representative of the poor areas of Kinshasa) and at schools at the wealthier end of the socio-economic spectrum, in central Kinshasa (Gombe).
The article first presents the context of the DRC's state–church relationships in the education sector, before analysing the joint solidarity fund (FCS). The article reconstructs the fund in the context of the history of education policy in the DRC, and more particularly the role of the Catholic Church. The following sections describe the way in which the FCS has been put into practice analysing how the initiative reveals the relations between different actors within the Catholic Church, and between the church and state authorities. The article then explores the new version of the solidarity fund, in place since the 2009–10 school year. Finally, conclusions are drawn in relation to the ‘negotiated state’ perspective on state reconstruction in the DRC.
A brief history of the church and the state in the education sector in the DRC
The creation of the FCS has to be situated in the larger context of the education system in the DRC, which is characterised by two important elements. First, non-state actors have been centrally involved in school provision since the formation of the educational system. Education was seen as one of the pillars of the colonial regime. This educational pillar was assigned to the churches, primarily and principally the Catholic Church (see also Leinweber, this volume). It was only in the late colonial period that the state developed a network of public schools – an evolution that reflected Belgian political debates of the 1950s among Catholic and secular political networks (Boyle 1995). Nevertheless, religious networks have dominated school provision until the present day. In 1974, this position was briefly interrupted by a major nationalisation initiative by the Mobutu regime. However, without the assent of the religious networks, particularly their financial support and personnel, the entire education system, in the context of the wider economic crisis, came close to collapse. The government sought to convince the Catholic Church to cooperate in a state-regulated education sector. This resulted, in 1977, in the signing of a convention between the state and the churches for the management of national schools. This marked the start of a fragile peace within the education system. Since then, two management regimes of public schools have coexisted: the official or ‘non-convention’ network, as well as several ‘convention-based’ religious networks. The 1977 convention stipulated that although the state assigned the management of these schools to the churches, the state retained the organisational power (‘pouvoir organisateur’) over the sector. Every public school – convention-based (managed by the religious networks) and non-convention (managed by the state) alike – was in principle financed by the state. According to the latest data of the Ministry of Primary, Secondary and Professional Education, convention-based schools attract three-quarters of all students. Among these, Catholic Church schools provide education to about 50% of all pupils. In the urban centres, the Catholic network is disproportionately represented at the wealthier end of society (De Herdt et al. 2012, Titeca and De Herdt 2011).
The Catholic network is itself composed of many religious orders which run schools in different parts of the country. Different orders have varying school policies, pedagogical approaches and management styles. They are however coordinated by central single Catholic administration, based in Kinshasa. Although differences of opinion, stance and (sometimes) conflicting interest arise between the orders, the Catholic network is generally organised in a strongly hierarchical way, despite the official decentralisation of the education sector. As will be shown below, the archbishop – the highest canonical position – of the Congolese Catholic Church also plays an important role in this. Because the Catholic network is the largest religious educational network in the DRC and is therefore the main focus of interaction on issues of educational provision with the government, this article will focus solely on the Catholic network and the Catholic Church.
From the 1980s onwards, the state retreated further from educational provision, with drastic reductions in funding reflecting structural adjustment policies and economic crisis. While the state still invested US$159 per pupil in 1982, this had fallen to only US$7 in 2006 (De Herdt et al. 2012). This evolution coincides with – and reinforces – the diminishing purchasing power of the state agents' salaries (teachers, public administration agents, and so on). As early as 1982, state agents' salaries had only one-fifth of the purchasing power they had in 1970 (Bézy et al. 1981). By 1987, they were worth only a third of what they had been in 1982. In this context, the state hires civil servants, but presumes that they will have to ‘steal carefully’ (‘yiba moke’)3 to complement their salaries with side activities – thereby gradually transforming the state bureaucracy into ‘a “market” where office holders compete for the acquisition of material benefits’ (Lemarchand 1988, p. 153). In the education sector, parents have become the primary source of additional revenue. Initially, a system of user fees was advocated by the World Bank in the early 1980s to compensate for reduced state budgets and to improve accountability. However, in the DRC this system was pushed to an extreme, where parents eventually paid the full cost of the service provided. In 1992, parents stepped in to pay for so-called salary top-ups for the teachers, By the end of the 1990s, a range of other fees had been created, which not only financed schools but the whole education system – including state- and non-state actors – up to the highest national levels of the administration.
The position of the church towards school fees confirms Gifford's hypothesis of the ambiguous relationship between the Catholic Church and the state. On the one hand, the church often criticises the ‘corrupt’, ‘disorganised’ and ‘irresponsible’ state which preys on the parents' contributions. The Catholic Church in the DRC has a long tradition of critical behaviour towards power. For instance it supported the democratic movement against the Mobutu regime in the early 1990s (Nzongola-Ntalaja 2002). On the other hand, as the managing authority of public schools, the church has become part of this state system; it depends upon the state for the payment of teachers' salaries. Indeed, notwithstanding its opposition to parental contributions, it is the church (as the largest provider of education) that mobilises most of these school fees. This very ambiguity is exemplified by the church's decision in 1992 to authorise teachers to ask parents for a supplement to their salaries. When teachers went on strike to pressurise the weakened Mobutu regime, the Catholic Church re-established social peace and alleviated this pressure. This led directly to the introduction of the system of ‘salary top-ups’ (‘frais de motivation’); since then, parents have paid most of teachers' salaries. The church therefore not only contributed to the foundation of the current system of user financing; it also benefits from the revenues generated by the system and helped liberate the regime from pressure by teachers and parents that it take responsibility for education provision.
The parental fee system kept the Congolese education sector afloat: indeed, it continued to expand despite decades of severe political, social and economic crisis (World Bank 2005, pp. 21, 42), as measured by the number of establishments, teachers and students (World Bank 2005, p. 27, table 2.2). This remarkable expansion has been achieved solely by Congolese actors, since for long periods external aid for education has been effectively unavailable (World Bank 2005). Even more remarkable is that the percentage of people who have never attended school is well below the average of less-developed countries and of sub-Saharan Africa, as shown in Table 1 below.
| Aged 6–16 | Aged 17–27 | Aged 23–27 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Male | Female | Male | Female | Male | Female | |
| Less developed countries | 22 | 26 | 20 | 32 | 24 | 39 |
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 24 | 27 | 21 | 33 | 25 | 39 |
| DRC | 16 | 22 | 6 | 20 | 7 | 21 |
| Source: UNESCO data, http://www.unesco.org/en/efareport/dme. |
The de facto privatisation of the education sector played an important role in this outcome as parents strongly contribute to the survival and functioning of the education sector. Yet, although remarkable, this is a two-edged sword. Parents are on the one hand extremely willing to send their children to school and are even willing to contribute, but on the other hand these costs are the main reason for non-attendance or early school drop-out (World Bank 2005).4
Thus, even though the state largely retreated from the financing of the education sector, education is still provided – mainly by the church – and paid for mainly by parents. Both church and state benefit from this system. Yet, this system is problematic, as it effectively liberates the state from its responsibilities, places a high burden on parents, and has negative consequences for school enrolment and drop-out rates. This is precisely the point at which the FCS becomes relevant.
The idea of a ‘joint solidarity fund’: the church versus the state
The current archbishop of Kinshasa, Monsignor Laurent Monsengwo, has long been one of the visible spokesmen of the church's position vis-à-vis the state. Since his nomination as president of the National Sovereign Conference (‘Conférence Nationale Souvéraine’) in 1991, he has played an important role in holding the state to account. In 2004 Monsengwo strongly criticised the system of salary top-ups, supporting teachers' unions, which had negotiated an agreement to increase their salaries. And since his nomination as archbishop of Kinshasa in 2007, Monsengwo has taken several initiatives concerning school fees, including the creation of the joint solidarity fund (FCS) in 2008. He first created a commission made up of pedagogues and religious (Catholic) leaders. On its recommendation, Monsengwo fixed the school fees for the 2008–09 school year at US$65 for primary schools and US$95 for secondary schools, each paid in two instalments. The stated objective of the FCS was to abolish inequality within the Congolese educational system. In the letter announcing the initiative, the archbishop claimed that the existing salary top-up paid by parents favours the better-off and undermines access to education for the poor.5
In previous years, schools enjoyed significant autonomy in fixing school fees: every school decided the amount to be paid by parents, creating significant differentials. Under the FCS, all schools and students within the Catholic network would pay the same amount. This money would have to be transferred to a bank account controlled by the diocese's financial administrator, and would be topped up with donor money. The revenue generated would constitute a real ‘solidarity’ fund: the Catholic administration would finance the school's most urgent needs, such as repairing dilapidated buildings. A second stated objective of the fund was to abolish the system in which parents assume responsibility for the teachers' payment and which accordingly puts strong financial pressure on the parents. In this way, the Catholic Church sought to pressure the state into resuming its responsibility for paying the teachers' salaries.
Before we examine the problems of implementing the FCS, it should be noted that the conception of the fund is remarkably reminiscent of Bayart's description of religious evergetism, the practice of collecting (more or less voluntary) parishioners' contributions for specific purposes such as the construction or restoration of a school or a health centre, whereupon a ‘Big Man’ can then publicly demonstrate his generosity (Bayart 1989, p. 10). This is then a practice reinforcing the above ethos of munificence or ‘Big Man’ leadership.
Religious power and authority mobilised for and against the FCS
In this section the article analyses how the solidarity fund was received and perceived by, and how it affected, both parents and teachers. In doing so, we will analyse how the church's mode of governance plays out on the ground.
Parents' reaction and the inability to pay
Study of the actual implementation of the FCS shows that it was mostly the less well-off schools in Kinshasa that participated in the solidarity fund. These poorer schools, mostly situated on the outskirts of the city, hoped to receive more resources through the solidarity fund. As mentioned above, the aim of the FCS was to redistribute the proceeds of the school fees from the rich to the poor schools. From the start however, several difficulties arose: for poorer parents, the requested US$65 represented an enormous amount of money and a substantial increase. The previous year, the fees for such schools generally did not exceed US$40. In practice, the FCS had driven down the number of pupils in convention-based Catholic schools. Fewer pupils registered and more dropped out during the school year (data collection, research 2008–12).6 Further, very few parents actually paid their children's school fees that year.7 However, in contrast to previous years, the majority of students who completed the school year but had not paid their fees were not expelled.
Teachers' discontentment and non-mobilisation of the state
The FCS has had a complex impact upon the teachers' wage problem. As mentioned above, the aim was to abolish the practice of salary top-ups in place for many years: one of the objectives was to hold the state to account for paying teachers' salaries. This however created a contradictory situation in which most parents were paying more than in previous years, but the teachers were earning less. The money paid by parents was no longer staying in schools, but rather going to the FCS.8 Naturally, this created significant discontent among teachers, leading to a number of strikes in different schools at the beginning of the school year. However, the reaction of the Catholic network was also swift: teachers were informed that they could expect a standard salary of US$150 per month through the FCS. There was nonetheless a major condition: if the state accepted its responsibility to pay teachers an official salary of US$100 (its value at the start of the school year), the FCS would then contribute a supplement of US$50. This precondition made it unlikely to become a reality – it nevertheless had a strong effect on the ground. In the poorer schools it led teachers to return to work as their salaries had been lower than even US$100. However, in richer schools in the city centre, teachers continued their strike. Many so-called associational schools (e.g. Jesuit schools, or the elite schools of other congregations) had refused to participate in the solidarity fund from the start. In previous years, fees in these associational schools were around US$135, which allowed salaries for their teachers of around US$300 per month, considerably higher than the FCS arrangement. Continued strikes in these schools obliged the Catholic network to effectively authorise these schools to restart the old system. In practice therefore, the association schools in the city centre have never participated in the FCS.9
The fact that rich schools did not want to transfer money to the fund, and poor schools could not pay, created a deadlock in the functioning of the FCS and more generally in the Catholic educational network in Kinshasa. By the end of the first term (December 2008), schools that had transferred money to the bank had not received anything in return. Consequently, they could not meet their usual obligations: salary top-ups, fee payments for administrative offices, and so on. This situation lasted until the end of December, when many teachers went on strike. Teachers were joined by their students in protests calling for the payment of teachers' salaries. This stalemate obliged the Catholic administration to negotiate with the schools. Although these strikes were not a general practice, and happened sporadically throughout Kinshasa, the administration nevertheless allowed all schools that had contributed to the FCS to collect their money from the bank, in order to pay the teachers.
During the second semester, the basis of the FCS was further undermined: money collected by schools was no longer transferred to the bank, but was instead retained and managed by the school.
A Big Man mode of governance?
The failure of the FCS was not only caused by issues of power, but also issues of authority. In the Catholic Church, policy is heavily based upon personalities – the ‘Big Man’ rule. As Sahlins (1963) argues in his seminal article, personal power is at the heart of Big Man rule:
The indicative quality of big-man authority is everywhere the same: it is personal power. Big-men do not come to office; they do not succeed to, nor are they installed in, existing position of leadership over political group … [His authority] rather is the outcome of a series of acts which elevate a person above the common herd and attract about him a coterie of loyal, lesser men. (Sahlins 1963, p. 389)
However, while personal relations are the basis of the Big Man's power, they are simultaneously a major weakness. As Sahlins (1963, p. 292) argues, ‘personal loyalty has to be made and continually reinforced; if there is discontent it may well be severed’, which may lead to ‘comparative instability’. The Big Man's capacity to sustain a following is therefore largely dependent on his capacity to personally assist his followers (Utas 2012, p. 6). Personal links therefore have to be continuously strengthened, or this will create instability. These dynamics also played out for Monsengwo and the FCS. The strong personalisation referred to above made resolving the problems created by the FCS more difficult. The archbishop, the main (or single) responsible person behind the initiative, as an ‘international personality’,10 often travels outside the country, and this made it difficult to respond to problems as they arose. Moreover, when lower-level authorities – both state and non-state actors – were confronted with these problems, they always followed the hierarchical order: schools told parents that they did not have the authority to change the initiative; the Catholic administration told schools the same, and so on. No one could change the situation and everyone hid behind the orders and authority of the archbishop. This created significant frustration throughout the whole administrative chain. While the Big Man – Monsengwo – had strongly personalised the initiative, he did not provide any solutions, nor did he engage personally in its implementation.
Communication around the FCS was thus very poor. Rather than giving the schools time to prepare this initiative, instructions were only sent to the schools at the very start of the school year. As one school director argued, ‘the solidarity fund was a surprise to us. It fell on us like that. Parents were upset. We have not been consulted.’11 Moreover, although the initiative changed the situation profoundly, no solutions were offered for the problems that arose. For example, there were no instructions on the management of the FCS, and many questions for those involved. How would the money be distributed? How much would the teachers receive? How should the schools transfer funds to the administrative institutions? Many such questions went unanswered. After the initial communication in September 2008, no other instructions were sent to the schools. The end result was Sahlin's comparative instability (see above), a situation characterised by confusion, tensions and conflicts within the schools, for example between the teachers and the head teachers, between the parents and the head teachers, and so on. Conflicts in schools – those that were solved – were solved on a case-by-case basis rather than on a structural level. As one school director told us: ‘There is total silence! We do not know what to do!’12
This instability in turn led effectively to disloyalty to the Big Man rule, and the instructions of the Catholic network, as the schools resorted as far as possible to ‘old’ solutions. For example, when schools finally (in December) received authorisation to withdraw their money in order to end the teachers' protests (see above), again there were no instructions concerning the use or management of the money by the schools. Negotiations therefore took place within the schools, allowing most to reach a division of the funds for paying teachers (about 60%) and for running the school (about 40%). All this was decided at school level; there was no hierarchical instruction to untangle the impasse schools found themselves in. In practice, from December onwards, the old system of school fee distribution was re-established.
Behind the ‘personalisation’ described are hidden tensions within the Catholic network itself. As Mrsic-Garac (2008) documents, the Catholic network has long been divided over the question of school fees. For example, since the introduction of salary top-ups in 1992, there have been many strikes in which teachers asked the state to take charge of their salaries. During these strikes, which mostly happened at the beginning of the school years (for example in September 2005 and 2007), members of the Catholic network have encouraged teachers to restart work, thereby encouraging the continued payment by parents of salary top-ups. On the other hand, Mgr Monsengwo – President of the Episcopal Conference since 1997 – supported these strikes, and consistently opposed the payment of salary top-ups by parents (Mrsic-Garac 2008). This division has persisted within the network. One part of the Catholic network was against the FCS, and another part was in favour. More generally, the Catholic network's stance on school fees has always been ambivalent: on the one hand, the Catholic Episcopate (under the initiative of Mgr Monsengwo) decided in 2004 to abolish salary top-ups; at the same time, however, the Catholic network itself kept imposing various costs on schools and therefore on parents (Mrsic-Garac 2008, p. 5).
General tensions within the Catholic hierarchy found concrete expression in relation to the FCS. On the one hand, Mgr Monsengwo defended the introduction of the FCS. He argued that the fees were not too high, as these were based on a sector-wide audit and an ad hoc commission – ‘as the sum of US$65 was calculated in a scientific way, it could not be changed’13 – and no exceptions were possible. According to the archbishop, all schools had been convinced to continue participating after further explanation, and he remained convinced of the fund's positive effects and that it would meet its stated objectives. However, Mgr Monsengwo was the only actor within the church hierarchy who remained positive. Other actors interviewed had strong concerns about its feasibility. One of the Catholic coordinators argued: ‘The initiative was based on the advice of … economists and financial advisors. But they clearly didn't know much about psychology! They did not take into account how the parents were going to react.’14 One of those involved in the sector audit criticised the FCS's chaotic implementation: ‘The biggest problem is that the initiative has been decided unexpectedly and without preparation.’15 Such statements reflect serious frustration on different levels of the hierarchy. In sum, the authority of the ‘Big Man’, fragile and unstable in practice, proved to be insufficient to impose its view on reality. It led to severe tensions with the schools, and within the Catholic network.
While the Big Man rule was important in implementing the FCS, it was not the only source of authority. As suggested by Weber (1978), different sources of authority are usually combined to secure obedience. In this case, the Catholic Church utilised both ‘Bigmanity’ and bureaucratic rule to introduce the FCS. The church (as well as the other convention-based churches) exhibits a ‘full-fledged organizational structure encompassing almost every aspect of socio-economic life’, through which it can be considered ‘the organization with the most extensive and effective institutional set-up’ (Tull 2005, pp. 219, 245). However, both of these elements proved insufficient to push through this initiative effectively.
At a deeper level, the FCS demonstrated how the church strongly neglected different sources of power within the education system. In practice, the Congolese education sector is to a large extent financed by the schools themselves, which means the economic power of the education system and the churches resides with them. Schools therefore have the power to contest decisions that affect them negatively. On the one hand, parents and students had no choice but to leave the schools, as fees were simply too high for them. On the other hand, both parents and teachers acted in different ways to contest the initiative. One of the most important results is the relative autonomy of schools – even in relation to the religious networks to which they belong. This applies not only to the ‘big’ Catholic schools at the wealthy end of the market, but also the other convention-based schools, which ultimately refused to follow the initial direction of the FCS in order to retain their niche and stay in business in the narrow space between parents' buying power and teachers' salary requirements.
The joint solidarity fund and the state's mode of governance
The study of the FCS also sheds light on the effectiveness of the state's attempts to regulate and impose its policies. Although the FCS was proposed by the Catholic church, it has to function in a context where the state claims to be the main organisational power. In the first instance, state representatives were forced to intervene in actual practice, though hardly to enforce the law. As indicated above, the initiative created myriad conflicts at the level of the schools themselves, pitting the teachers, deprived of their salary top-ups, against the school heads. The state representatives were forced to calm the situation. This was why the highest authority in the Kinshasa education sector, the Urban Commission of the Provincial Ministry of Education, took the decision in December 2008 to suspend the FCS. Similarly, the provincial minister of education denounced the initiative. This was done on the basis of three arguments. First, it directly contradicted the authority of the state as the ‘organising power’ of the education sector.16 Second, the most important concern of government and donors alike is the reduction of school fees, for which a number of initiatives have been put in place (for example the World Bank projet Projet d'urgence pour la réhabilitation urbaine et sociale (PURUS) paying the ‘fees for school functioning’ – frais de fonctionnement – to the schools). The FCS goes directly against these initiatives, by in fact raising school fees for parents. The third, and most urgent, reason for intervention was the fear for a collective protest movement of the teachers against the state. As their salary top-ups were to be abolished through the implementation of the FSC, the teachers might demand higher salaries from the state (which had already been promised for many years). These actions were an (implicit) objective of the initiative.
Yet, although the Urban Commission and the provincial minister17 suspended the solidarity fund, this decision was never officially communicated to the schools, nor to other state actors. In other words, the state did not in practice intervene. As an official of the Catholic network put it: ‘Everybody knows that when the state takes such a decision, it will not enforce this measure.’18 The state's fatalism towards the FCS is similar to its fatalism towards other school fees: as described above, salary top-ups were declared illegal in a 2007 decree, yet the state does not prevent them continuing. In fact, doing so would be against its interests, as it is not in a position to meet the pay gap that would then result. The same applies to the FCS. If the state were to actually suspend the fund – in other words if the state acted against the Catholic network – there would be no more educational services. As spelt out above, state and church educational administrative offices are only able to function because part of the fees paid by parents pays for them (De Herdt et al. 2012).
Notwithstanding the difficulties encountered in its operation, the FCS continued in the following year, 2009–10. This time, the state took effective action: it called on the archbishop to negotiate another solution. The result was reflected in two decrees on the level and distribution of school fees by the city/province of Kinshasa, and in two new decrees issued by the Kinshasa archdiocese. The decrees of the province stipulated that in addition to school fees fixed by the province, each school could still propose ‘punctual intervention fees’ (primarily, salary top-ups for teachers). In this situation, the school fees of the FCS are no longer only fixed by the Catholic administration, but once again at school level. However, 20% of the ‘punctual intervention fees’ must be transferred to the solidarity fund (Hofmeijer 2011). In return, two civil servants of the Kinshasa government are appointed to the management committee of the FCS. Meanwhile, in the decrees of Kinshasa's archdiocese, school fees were now differentiated according to the financial situation of the families concerned. This ranged from US$30 for lower-income families, to US$60 for middle-income, and US$100 for higher-income families. The parish priests were charged with determining the financial situation of the families concerned. In doing so, school fees could in theory better respond to the different needs of the families and schools, through which the system could become a ‘real’ solidarity fund.
Given the above, it should be clear that the ‘renewed’ version of the FCS was significantly different to its predecessor. This time there has been an immediate contact between state and church representatives and, above all, it corresponded more closely with the practical norms already in place. The level of school fees was fixed at school level and there was a division of benefits between the school, teaching staff, and different offices of the state and the Catholic administrations. In this way, the new version of the FCS represented a clear compromise with existing power dynamics. As explained above, the economic power of the education system lies within the schools – and more particularly with the students and parents. By allowing the salary top-ups to function, and school fees to be determined mainly at the school level, the arrangement partly reflected the effective power balance. Moreover, by no longer questioning the system of salary top-ups, the FCS was no longer a vehicle through which the church opposed the state and its system of school fees. In line with Gifford's (1994) and Bayart's (1989) analyses cited in the introduction, this shows how the confrontational position of the church eventually ended in a compromise between the state and the church. However, in contrast to their analyses, we have shown how power is not only situated with the state – which forces churches into a compromise with the state – but how power is much more dispersed. It was primarily the actions of the schools that forced the church to adapt its initiative.
Conclusion: from negotiation towards permanent provocation?
In this article, we have shown how the Congolese state and the Catholic Church rely on various sources of authority and power in their modes governance. In enforcing the solidarity fund, the church relied both on its bureaucratic authority and on the ‘Big Man’ authority of Archbishop Mgr Monsengwo. However, as argued above and as demonstrated by the case of the FCS, given the de facto privatisation of the educational sector in Kinshasa, politics of school fees are determined in the first place by schools themselves, whose main constraints are imposed by supply and demand for education. Schools must respond to the limited purchasing power of parents on the one hand, and to the problem of teachers' salaries on the other. Parents can ‘vote with their feet’ and take their children away from school; teachers recurrently use strikes as an instrument. We have seen how these two elements had an influence on the management of the FCS, and how the actual functioning of education as part of the public sector is largely determined and driven by local-level realities (i.e. the schools), rather than by policies of the state or the church. In this situation, the state regulatory framework is relatively powerless. In addition, the policies of donors (which have to work through these relatively powerless official structures to reduce school fees) will have to take this reality into account. Finally, even the churches' action must be responsive to these conditions as long as school fees are considered to be the best guarantee for regular financing of the schools – and of the education system at large. If governance is overwhelmingly determined at the local level, primarily based upon negotiations between local actors, this should be taken into account by the ‘larger’ power poles at a higher policy level. Local governance and public services are not produced by the state, but by a larger network of actors – something Clements et al. (2007, p. 48) call a ‘hybrid political order’. In this article, we have shown how the ‘hybrid political order’ of a specific part of the public sector (in this case the education sector) is composed of different entities.
If the existing situation analysed above is compared with the ‘negotiated state(ness)’ concept, it is possible to reach wider conclusions. As explained above, the idea of the ‘negotiated state’ suggests that the state emerges as a product of negotiation between different state and non-state actors or centres of authority (Raeymaekers et al. 2008, p. 17). The case of the FCS allows us to add two elements.
First, the literature on ‘negotiated stateness’ has shown how these negotiations take place between ‘large’ categories or power poles such as rebel groups, governmental actors, trading groups, and so on (e.g. Raeymaekers 2010, Menkhaus 2008). In this article, we have emphasised the struggles within power poles. The FCS shows how the Catholic Church failed in its efforts to enforce its decisions on schools within its network: from the start, the ‘associational schools’ did not participate in this initiative, neglecting the rules imposed by the senior levels of the Catholic network. In addition, the initiative itself has been contested by other actors within the Catholic network itself. The fact that through the system of school fees much of the economic power lies at the local level (away from the large and high-level power poles) further weakened the capacity of the church to act as a unitary actor vis-à-vis the state. These weaknesses were all that was needed for the representatives of the state to oppose the FCS initiative. Yet, the state would not by itself have been capable of intervening, because it is itself fraught with internal contradictions. While its senior officials are responsive to the donors' aim of reducing school fees, lower-level state representatives seek to complement their salaries by securing their slice of the school fees ‘cake’. In the end, the ‘new’ version of the FCS was a victory for the lower-level officials of both the church and the state: the fund became just one more cost in the long list of parents' payments to the school.
A second related point is that the concept of ‘negotiation’ suggests greater focus than exists in reality, where the process is much patchier. The story of the FCS initiative has not involved a singular process of negotiation which has taken into account, or been accepted by, all the actors concerned. In addition, every centre of authority or power pole involved is itself a ‘twilight institution’, drawing on contradictory sources of authority and only partly in control of the sources of power attributed to it. As such, the education sector is governed by a patchwork of actors with different strategies. For those actors, it is not at all evident that they should be required to understand each other, let alone share similar objectives. With every new initiative, conflict or event, it remains to be seen who will end up on the winning or losing side of the game.
In such a logic, the modus vivendi reflects momentary relations of power and authority, is therefore precarious and inherently unstable, and consequently can change from one year to the next. If an arrangement is already negotiated, it is bound to be a partial and temporary arrangement. As has been shown through the case of the FCS, there was ultimately a certain agreement between the different parties (i.e. state and non-state actors) on the redistribution of school fees, but this arrangement hardly qualifies as a solid basis on which to construct a public education policy. Perhaps the process of state formation resembles much less a ‘negotiation’ and more what Foucault called a process of ‘permanent provocation’ (Miller, Gordon and Burchell 1991), where each step forward invites responses from different sides, the only certainty being that the process will never come to rest. The state is permanently under construction. Though unsettling to external policy planners, this is not necessarily a pessimistic perspective for the school directors, parents and teachers, who, at their respective levels, have in practice been making their school function in the interest, as they perceive it, of their pupils and/or children.
Notes on contributors
Kristof Titeca is postdoctoral researcher from the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO), based at the Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp, Belgium.
Tom De Herdt is senior lecturer at the Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp, Belgium.
Inge Wagemakers is researcher at the Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp, Belgium.