Drawing on research in Chad, DR Congo, Libya, Myanmar, South Sudan, West Africa and Yemen, this Working Paper challenges narrow readings of roadblocks as security devices or sites of corruption. Instead, it conceptualises them as politically and economically generative nodes through which authority is exercised, rents are extracted and redistributed, markets are shaped, and conflict is financed.

M23’s offensive and capture of Goma have dominated recent coverage of the crisis in the eastern DRC. To unpack what’s happening on the ground — and what it means for the wider region — we spoke with Centre on Armed Groups Fellow Christoph Vogel, an academic, investigator, and writer who has spent more than 15 years researching armed conflict in the DRC. Christoph discusses M23’s end game, the regional power dynamics fueling the conflict, and what we might expect in the weeks and months ahead.