Those who doubt Nkurunziza's legitimacy are “out of their minds” : A Case Study of the Burundian State’s Conflict Management

The aim of this study is to examine what conflict management practices that were employed in Burundi by the state around the electoral crisis of 2015. This will be done by applying the Authoritarian Conflict Management Framework. The study is qualitative, desk and case study and the data has been analyzed according to the method abduction as redescription and recontextualization. The result of the study shows that the Burundian state has adopted several conflict management practices to control political opponents. The state presents itself as democratic and under attacked by "enemies of the state" and "terrorists" as they call the opponents in the official discourse on Twitter. This discourse occurs simultaneously as the state security forces are dehumanizing the opponents in compounds where the opponents are being ill-treated and tortured. Another result explains why the Burundian security forces are enjoying impunity despite their human rights violations against the opponents within the mentioned compound. Despite violent actions, the state has also turned to a practice that gave development initiatives to diaspora to engage in, in order to restrict the diasporas political influence. A last main result questions the long-lasting stability of the contemporary government of Burundi, as the neopatrimonialism system has not only provided stability but also been a factor that triggered the 2015 political crisis