Using descriptive research approaches, this article concludes that legacies of prolonged civil war including unresolved issues within the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, politico-military incongruent policies, and communal violence present serious challenges to the Government of South Sudan as it struggles to sustain its independence. Link to publication
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CSRF Research Repository
The CSRF Research Repository aims to support greater contextual knowledge for policy makers, programme managers, and implementers by providing a searchable repository of research, analysis, and resources, and providing periodic updates on new research and analysis.
This paper examines the persistence of violent conflicts in the two Sudans. It examines standard macro-approaches to conflict resolution—democracy, inclusiveness, intervention, secession, as well as the more radical “let-them-fight” thesis—to demonstrate the limitations on the ability of outsiders to manage the conflicts. Link to publication
This article investigates the role of demarcation, delineation and the protection of its territorial boundaries in shaping and defining South Sudan’s national identity. Link to publication
This article presents an investigation of the stunted peacekeeping economy in South Sudan in the period 2005–12, corresponding to the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) (2005–11) and the first years of its successor, the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). The article explores ways in which UNMIS and UNMISS have interacted with the national and local (Juba-based) economy, both on the institutional level and as a collective of individuals. Link to publication
Contemporary South Sudanese Nuer prophets play powerful roles in interpreting the moral limits of lethal violence and weighing the legitimacy claims of rival government leaders. Their activities remain largely invisible to external observers investigating the making and unmaking of fragile states. Focusing on South Sudan’s tumultuous 2005–14 period, this article reveals these hidden dynamics through analysis of the two most-powerful living western Nuer prophets. Link to publication
This article argues for a reflexive perspective on the ‘local’ in peacebuilding. Through case studies from Burundi and South Sudan, the authors show that representations of the local are conflictingly produced by scholars, practitioners, and government officials, telling about the true, the good, and the bad local, empowering some and disempowering other actors, institutions, and practices. These dynamics have tangible effects on peace, conflict, and (in)security. Link to publication
Armed, cattle-herding men in Africa are often assumed to be at a relational and spatial distance from the ‘legitimate’ armed forces of the government. The vision constructed of the South Sudanese government in 2005 by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement removed legitimacy from non-government armed groups including localised, armed, defence forces that protected communities and cattle. Yet, militarised cattle-herding men of South Sudan have had various relationships with the governing Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement/Army over the…
This article explains political events in South Sudan since 2011 through the lens of a political marketplace. Link to publication
The article surveys the first year of the civil war that began in December 2013. It outlines the course of military engagements, the consequences of the civil war for the people of South Sudan and the ways in which a peaceful settlement has been sought. Download
The introduction to this special issue of the Journal of Eastern African Studies on Emerging South Sudan: Negotiating Statehood explores whether the ‘emerging’ state South Sudan needs a ‘permanent’ constitution given the negotiated nature of statehood. Download
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