Since the early 1980s, ‘collapse’, ‘oppression’, ‘illusion’, ‘bankruptcy’, ‘corruption’ and ‘criminalisation’ have become unavoidable terms when referring to the Zaire of Mobutu and, subsequently, the Congo of Kabila père and fils (Turner 1981; Callaghy 1984; Young 1984; Young and Turner 1985; Braeckman 1992; Leslie 1993; Weiss 1995; Bustin 1999a; McNulty 1999; Lemarchand 2001). These works focus on the ‘failure’ of sub-Saharan Africa's largest state, attributing it to deep-rooted historical processes, Cold War politics, aggressive industrial capitalism and personality cult. This state crisis terminology is representative of a continent-wide examination of the (in)appropriateness, and future survivability, of the Weberian nation-state model for the African post-colony.

In contrast to what has become a tradition of condemning the inability – or unwillingness – of the Congo/Zaire authorities to ‘manage the country’ according to Western perceptions of how states should function, this article argues that state-society relations in Kinshasa are not always as poorly organised as outside observers tend to believe; there is order in the disorder. Function and dysfunction overlap. This applies to all social and political levels, ranging from neighbourhood, professional or ethnic associations and networks to the level where political decisions are made. The Kinois (which is what the residents of Kinshasa call themselves) have entered into a new phase of post-colonialism. Selectively rejecting the legacy of Belgian colonialism, they combine global approaches to local problems while blending ‘traditional’ belief systems and behaviours with their own unique forms of ‘modernity’.