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This paper examines the disputes related to the orientation and implementation of rural public policies within the Rwandan administration in order to capture the formative processes of post-genocide Rwanda. The results of the analysis challenge the monolithic and harmonious status attributed ex post to the Rwandan state by much of the literature. The paper argues that despite the image of Rwanda as a centralized and authoritarian developmental state, it is a country like any other, i.e., a country where public policy is constantly being negotiated. But more specifically, the Rwandan case shows how this negotiation feeds rivalries that end up producing peripheral authorities within the local administration.