Strengthening Sovereignty or Creating Dependence : A study on the United Nations and the Dodd-Frank Act’s effect on the autonomy of the Democratic Republic of Congo in mineral conflicts

Abstract: As the global demand for natural resources grows, conflicts and instability surrounding minerals and resources continue to mark the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operation MONUSCO has been deployed in the DRC since 2010, and that same year, the United States (US) established the Dodd-Frank Act with its Section 1502 concerning conflict minerals originating from the DRC. These actors play a crucial partin the effects foreign aid and support has on the Government of the DRC’s efforts to act autonomously in order to mitigate conflicts and create peace, yet research on the matter mainly focuses on the impact the Dodd-Frank Act has on American companies and the Congolese population, as well as the challenges of MONUSCO. This study therefore aims at investigating how the involvement of these actors have affected the Government of the DRC’s ability to act autonomously in peacekeeping, through a qualitative content analysis based on 22 UN Security Council Resolutions on the extension of MONUSCO and Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act. These documents have been analysed through the theoretical framework of neo-colonialism, dependency theory and aid dependency. The results of this thesis show that the involvement of MONUSCO and the establishment of the Dodd-Frank Act has increased the DRC’s dependence on their support, as previous research points out how violence has increased after the Dodd-Frank Act’s entry into force. The results further show that the conditions created by these actors have left the Government of the DRC in a state of dependence instead of strengthening their sovereignty and ability to act autonomously in creating peace.