Liberal internationalism meets third worldism: the politics of international election observation in the DRC’s post-war elections

In this article, we draw on the contradictions in, and the geopolitics of, international election observation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s 2006 and 2011 elections to identify and analyse the emergence of a neo-third world behaviour among African states intended to counter the excesses of Western liberal democracy promotion on the continent. We argue that the decision by African states to quickly endorse the 2011 elections and close ranks around Joseph Kabila’s government, amidst mounting international criticisms of the electoral process, should be understood in the context of a new form of third worldism that is emerging in the global South in response to the unrestrained exercise of US power.