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DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE ERA OF GLOBALIZATION
The article aims to identify the nature of social transformations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) under illegal minerals mining and smuggling carried out by foreign mining companies, armed groups, criminal groups of neighboring countries, "war barons" and associated "agents". New forms of government and economic activities resulted from government's failure to provide citizens of the eastern parts of the country with required services. In the conditions of complete disregard of national laws and interests regulating social relations, new rules of interaction between individual groups and between individual groups and local and central government authorities were developed. These new forms of social development have nothing to do with chaos: numerous rival centers of power on the fringes of the country exercise effective control, provide services and exploit local population. Poor people of the richest eastern provinces of the DRC who do not benefit from extraction and export of valuable minerals are forced to develop their own "survival strategies", including illegal minerals mining and smuggling. Illegal economic activities form new “legalized” authorities, change values of the Congolese and transform the society. As a result, the anti-government system of public relations reached a high point of development in the eastern regions of the DRC.