This intellectually demanding study of Nande traders in the North Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo provides deep insights into the nature of socio-political organization in a nominally ungoverned space. Raeymaekers’ study can perhaps be best described as a “politico-economic ethnography” of the Nande and their ethnic brethren, the “Konzo,” across the border in Uganda. The study is ethnographic in that the author analyzes the Nande traders, and those with whom they interact, from their own perspectives. Raeymaekers rightly complains that too many scholars of Congo—not to mention diplomats, aid workers, and foreign businessmen—constantly try to imagine how things should or will work on the giant country’s peripheries, rather than how they actually do work. In the midst of the alleged “chaos” of a Congo in “crisis,” observable “rule systems” (p. 2) have emerged and endured over many years in North Kivu. This study is among a very few that compellingly describes real governance in one of the many marginalized corners of Congo.

Raeymaekers rightly understands that governance and the pursuit of economic sustenance in the marginal areas of Congolese territory are utterly intertwined, and hence his study is usefully labelled a “political economy.” The term “capitalism” appears in the title of his volume because he is primarily interested in the modes through which Nande traders have accumulated, protected, and deployed capital. The author argues that this private purpose necessarily had a public outcome, namely, that informal but well-understood and enduring rules of the game emerged. Many of these informal rules have directly contradicted the official laws of the Congolese state, but they are no less consistently practiced by either state representatives or Nande businessmen for that reason. These politico-economic rules are loosely enforced by local military strongmen, sometimes working officially for the Congolese state, sometimes not. Naturally, these enforcers require a “cut” of the proceeds from trading activities, both between rural areas and towns, and across the Congo-Ugandan border.

There is a huge amount of uncertainty about the enforcement of these rules, however, making capital accumulation a risky proposition in North Kivu. Further, the rules of the politico-economic game are regularly re-negotiated as events on the ground change. Thus, local capitalists operate in an environment of enormous uncertainty, and adjust their behavior accordingly. The results are often surprising. For instance, the remote town of Butembo experienced real estate investments ranging between $20 and $35 million in the decade following the outbreak of the 1997 war (p. 20) as traders attempted to secure the fruits of their investments.

Although an ethnography need not have a central argument, the study does, although it is difficult to characterize. In addition to Raeymakers’ claim that an observable “system of rule” has emerged in North Kivu, he also seeks to provide a nuanced description of the relationship of the “authorities” of this local system with the rulers of the central Congolese state and (occasionally) with foreign invaders. This description is nuanced because this relationship is so complicated; the local “authorities” essentially negotiate a form of local sovereign rights for themselves and local traders that acknowledges central state authority, but never entirely submits to it. When necessary, they resist and sometimes successfully defy that central authority. For their part, Congo’s rulers in Kinshasa realize both that they lack sufficient control over their own representatives to extend real sovereignty in the region, but also that they can benefit from a favorable arrangement with these local authorities. It is easier to understand Raeymakers’ argument by reference to some of the views that he argues against. He distinguishes his point of view from all of the following: the notion that local traders and security enforcers are acting in the absence of any central state presence at all; the idea that they are acting consistently in opposition to the central state, rather than in negotiation with it; and the proposition that rampaging local warlords are exploiting local inhabitants in an environment of chaos, unmediated by recognized rules of politico-economic conduct. Aside from the inherent complexity of his argument, Raeymaekers’ use of some vague post-structuralist language and his deployment of many avant-garde terms from social geography will obscure his argument for some political scientists. From the interdisciplinary perspective of this reviewer, however, it is well worth the effort of struggling with this language to benefit from the vivid and nuanced portrait that Raeymaekers paints of Nande culture and the unusual political economy that it has produced.

Following his introduction laying out the argument, Raeymakers turns to a description of the contemporary political economy in the Congolese town of Kasindi. The major economic activity is commercial trade across the Lubiriha River, which marks the Congolese-Ugandan border. The “constriction” of the trading space represented by the border creates economic opportunities for both the Nande traders and officials on both sides of the border. Congolese agriculturalists produce foodstuffs and charcoal to be traded for processed foodstuffs and light manufactures coming from Uganda. The Nande “capitalists” controlling this trade benefit handsomely, though unpredictably, while state authorities on both sides of the border extort a portion of the profits for private benefit. Those who do the yeoman’s work of the trade are displaced and dispossessed of their land, barely surviving under the harsh system.

Chapter 2 traces the historical origins of the Nande entrepreneurial culture that animates this contemporary trade. Raeymaekers finds the origins of Nande “capitalist” culture first in the encounter with American Protestant (Baptist) missions, who preached self-reliance and hard work, along with Christian gospel. Second, the headquartering of a Belgian mining operation at Butembo in 1923 created a cash economy in which Nande economic culture could gain traction. The demarcation of the colonial border between Congo and Uganda, and later the advance of the first Congolese civil war (1960–1964) into North Kivu, further defined Nande trading culture as one that could negotiate virtual state absence, a violent political environment, and the economic opportunities of a nearby international frontier. Chapter 3 continues the story of evolving Nande entrepreneurial culture through the period of rule by Mobutu Sese Seko, during which time the Zairian state engaged in periodic predation, but little regulation. In this environment, local Nande businessmen consolidated their role as local “political regulators” as they extended their capitalist activities into light manufacturing and extra-continent trade with Asia. The subsequent chapter describes how Nande businessmen “re-produced” political order after the fall of Mobutu and through the official period of war in Congo (1997–2003). Although the Zairian state collapsed, Nande business elites nimbly maintained the politico-economic order of North Kivu to their relative economic advantage during this era of putative chaos. The fifth chapter describes how the Nande politico-economic elite responded to the nominal restoration of legitimate rule in Congo between 2003 and 2013. In this period, they had to reckon with the reappearance of both international (United Nations) and Congolese state authorities on the scene, and cede some political control in the renegotiation of power; on the other hand, internal Congolese markets to the west were opened to them, while their international operations gained a new legitimacy. Always, their entrepreneurial culture was flexible enough to adapt to the opportunities of “liminality” as the power of external authority waxed stronger again.

In sum, Raeymaekers provides a powerful corrective to the pervasive view that the economy of Eastern Congo has been controlled by “blunt adventurists and warlords acting for pure selfish gain” (p. 142). He convincingly shows that Nande entrepreneurs have created and sustained a local political order in North Kivu beginning with the decay of Belgian colonialism, and continuing through subsequent periods of state predation, state collapse, war and invasion, and the return of “legitimate” authority. His study also shows how invaluable an ethnography of a key people’s political economy can be to our understanding of politics in weak and collapsed African states.