The dynamics of peace and conflict are fundamentally shaped by a politics of scaling difference. Based on the insight that difference is widely associated with both the causes of and cures for violent conflict, this article explores how practices of scaling mediate this duality. Drawing on South Sudan and Kosovo, it is argued that the governance of conflict is characterized by efforts to skilfully accommodate diversity, straddling the line between recognizing, reinforcing, and reconfiguring difference…
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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.
As the global community strives to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 2) of ending hunger, progress is being fundamentally undermined by conflict. This report seeks to understand: i) how conflict affects different individuals’, groups’ and communities’ experience of hunger and food insecurity differently; ii) the different mechanisms by which conflict affects food security across the different pillars; and iii) what opportunities remain for mitigating the impacts of conflict on hunger. South Sudan is one of…
The area that is today’s South Sudan was once a marginalized region in the Republic of Sudan administered by tribal chiefs during the British colonial period (1899-1955). In the 1950s, marginalization gave rise to the Anyanya I rebellion, spearheaded by southern Sudanese separatists and resulting in the First Sudanese Civil War (1955-1972). The war ended after the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement, only for another civil war to break out in 1983 instigated by the Sudan…
Southern Sudan’s past crises have mobilised consistent flows of humanitarian assistance. Recalling the humanitarian catastrophes and international interventions of the 1990s–2000s, the war that exploded in South Sudan in 2013 has been no exception. This paper shows that the SPLM/A political elite promptly incorporated these flows of external resources into its extraverted strategies of state-building. Similar to the current situation, it did so by appropriating not only material assets but also discourses, playing the ‘fragile…
This article uses Arend Lijphart’s notion of ‘power-sharing consociationalism’ to understand the mutually reinforcing conflict system and the barriers to resolving such conflicts in South Sudan. ‘Consociationalism’ has been affirmed as an ideal approach for resolving conflicts in ethnically divided societies, but in South Sudan, the formal institutions of power sharing have not delivered sustainable peace. Analysis in this article reveals that the implementation of the various ‘peace agreements’ and ‘deals’ deviated from classical ‘consociationalism’….
Soon after South Sudan achieved independence in 2011, its political landscape grew increasingly volatile. It became almost impossible for international and regional actors to address one crisis before another more serious one erupted. This article combines cultural, political, economic and social factors into a comprehensive framework to explain the role of the political elites in transforming fear and politicized anger into violent and deadly conflicts. The theoretical framework of the security dilemma model is applied…
The proliferation and misuse of small arms and light weapons (SALW) is one of the most pervasive problems facing South Sudan. This briefing explores Saferworld’s work to identify and improve community-based solutions. In April 2017, with support from United Nations Mines Action Service (UNMAS), Saferworld launched a project to identify and improve community-based solutions to the threats posed by the proliferation and misuse of SALW. With their partners Community Empowerment for Progress Organisation (CEPO) and…
Could the civil war in South Sudan have been prevented? Could some of the violence and misery caused by the war have been avoided? Those questions are academic in some ways, as so much damage has been done. But in other ways, seeking answers is vital because patterns of violence in the 21st century suggest there will be more wars that resemble the South Sudan conflict: (a) fought within a country’s borders, (b) fought between…
Violent conflict and instability affect men and women in heterogeneous ways, including differentiated impacts on economic, social, physical, and mental well-being. This study assesses the impact of the post-2013 conflict in South Sudan on adolescent girls and young women. The analysis uses data from the Adolescent Girls Initiative endline survey and the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data to measure conflict exposure using constructed cluster-level, self-reported, and external conflict exposure variables. The impact of conflict…
In the Peacemakers Toolkit Series, William Zartman and Alvaro de Soto highlight the risks for senior mediators of being associated with sanctions. Similarly, the UN’s Guidance for Effective Mediation instructs international mediators to “avoid association with punitive measures against conflict parties” in order to maintain impartiality. The implied conclusion is clear: engaging with UN sanctions can be a liability and should be avoided. This apprehension is understandable and forms a core part of the conventional…
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