As a starter, the Rift Valley Institute’s Usalama Project provides the best state-of-the-art collection of nicely legible research papers on politics and security issues relating to (first and foremost eastern) Democratic Republic of the Congo. You can find them here.

Some incontournables and further suggestions on Congo, the Great Lakes, (mostly African) Politics & Conflict, Anthropology, and Sociology…

Autesserre, Séverine (2012): Dangerous Tales: Dominant Narratives on the Congo and their unintended consequences. African Affairs, Vol. 111, No. 443, pp. 1 – 21.

Bayart, Jean-François (2006): L’État en Afrique. La Politique du Ventre. Fayard, Paris.

Chabal Patrick/Daloz, Jean-Pascal (1999): Africa Works. Disorder as a Political Instrument (African Issues). James Currey, London.

Chatterjee, Partha (2004): The Politics of the Governed. Reflections on Popular Politics in most of the World. Columbia University Press, New York.

Cramer, Christopher (2006): Civil war is not a stupid thing. Accounting for Violence in Developing Countries. Hurst, London.

De Certeau, Michel (1984): The Practice of Everyday Life. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Hagmann, Tobias/Péclard, Didier (eds., 2011): Negotiating Statehood. Dynamics of Power and Domination in Africa. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester.

Lund, Christian (2006): Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa, in: Development and Change, Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 685–705.

Olivier de Sardan, Jean-Pierre (2008): Researching the practical norms of real governance in Africa. Discussion Paper No. 5. Africa Power and Politics Research Programme. ODI, London.

Polanyi, Karl (1944): The Great Transformation: Politische und ökonomische Ursprünge von Gesellschaften und Wirtschaftssystemen. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt.

Raeymaekers, Timothy/Menkhaus, Ken/Vlassenroot, Koen (2008): State and non-state regulation in African protracted crises: governance without government? Afrika Focus, Vol. 21, No. 2.

Stearns, Jason (2010): Dancing in the Glory of Monsters. The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa. Public Affairs, New York.

Tréfon, Théodore (ed.) (2004): Reinventing Order in the Congo. How People respond to State Failure in Kinshasa. Zed Books, London/New York.

Van Reybrouck, David (2012): Congo. Une histoire. Actes Sud, Arles.

Vlassenroot, Koen/Raeymaekers, Tim (ed. 2004): Conflict and Social Transformation in Eastern DR Congo. Academia Press, Gent.