Leopold II

Leopold II appears in the book as the most prominent Belgian colonialist associated with the late nineteenth-century European expansion into the Congo basin. His significance lies in the continuity the account draws between precolonial and colonial systems: European rule deepened insecurity over human and property rights while reproducing extractive institutions that concentrated power and wealth in the hands of a few.

Colonial Expansion in the Congo

The late nineteenth-century scramble for Africa brought European rule into the Congo basin. The book describes this expansion not as a break from earlier patterns of domination but as their more egregious continuation. Under colonial rule, insecurity of human and property rights exceeded even that of the precolonial Kongo, while political absolutism and extractive institutions again empowered a small elite at the expense of the wider population. Leopold II is named as the most notable of the Belgian colonialists who belonged to this ruling few.

Continuity After Independence

The institutional pattern associated with colonial rule did not end when Congo became independent in 1960. The account says that extractive economic institutions and their incentives persisted, supported by highly extractive political institutions. It therefore places Leopold II within a historical sequence whose consequences continued beyond colonial administration, rather than presenting colonial rule as an isolated episode.

That sequence also involved a state whose borders encompassed many precolonial states and societies, while the national government based in Kinshasa had little control over much of the country. Under President Mobutu, state power enriched the ruler and his associates, including through the 1973 Zairianization program, which involved mass expropriation of foreign economic interests. Yet the state remained weakly centralized: in the 1960s, Mobutu sought foreign assistance to prevent Katanga and Kasai from seceding.

Historical Significance

The comparison across periods is central to the book’s treatment of Leopold II. Colonial rule reproduced and intensified a pattern of extraction; independence, in turn, inherited institutions that continued to concentrate power rather than secure broad rights. The Congo’s weak political centralization, approaching state collapse in some areas, is presented as part of a wider pattern shared with much of sub-Saharan Africa. Leopold II’s place in the account is thus chiefly structural: he represents the colonial elite through whom an older form of extractive rule was renewed, with institutional consequences extending into the modern state.