Exclusivity Risks and Room to Hedge in the DRC under US–China Rivalry: A Conditional Framework and Research Design

How does US–China rivalry reshape the strategic positioning of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)? While some argue that intensified great-power competition pushes secondary states toward clearer alignments, others emphasize the persistence of hedging, defined as diversifying security and economic partnerships while avoiding exclusive commitments. Moving beyond Asia-centric accounts, I argue that for weak states whose principal threats are internal and regional, hedging is better understood as a response to the risks of exclusivity than to a default great-power threat. In the DRC, where security concerns center on regime survival and regional armed threats, authorities may seek "multi-provider" assistance without treating any single major power as the principal threat.
I argue that the scope for hedging depends on three conditions: (1) the urgency of internal/regional threats; (2) exclusivity and conditionality embedded in external offers, especially when security cooperation is tied to access to strategic minerals or infrastructure; and (3) the availability of credible alternative partners. I hypothesize that hedging shrinks when threats become immediate, offers demand exclusivity, and alternatives narrow, but expands when threats are contained and rivalry increases non-exclusive options.
To assess this argument, I develop a process-tracing design for tracking these alignment choices as regional and internal threats intensify, drawing on security cooperation, mineral deals, diplomatic positioning, and official discourse, with particular attention to the 2025 Washington accords. This work-in-progress version sets out the conditional framework and research design while the empirical analysis is forthcoming.