Imagining Mobutu's Zaire: The production and consumption of identity in international relations

Using the example of Mobutu's Zaire, this article explores the complexities of identity production and consumption within international relations. Through his invention of Zaire and his rhetoric of authenticite, Mobutu developed a counter-hegemonic discourse on the Congo within international relations, largely through the appropriation of Third World discourses on nationalism, Western philosophical rhetoric, colonial imagery, and the discourses of Cold War competition, This article also examines the diverse ways Mobutu's discourses on Zairian identity were consumed by different groups within the international community. Central to this article's thesis is the belief that an examination of the discursive production of identities in IR should be combined with an exploration of how those discourses are interpreted or consumed. Much of the literature on identity in IR either ignores or overlooks the second half of the production/consumption process. This article constructs a more integrated approach to identity in order to address both aspects.