Understanding Peaceful and Violent Nation-building Through Leadership : a Case Study of South Sudan

Understanding Peaceful and Violent Nation-building Through Leadership : a Case Study of South Sudan PDF Author: Sonja Theron
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Peace-building has reached a cross-roads. The high instance of conflict relapse in aÌ22́Ơ¿3post-conflictaÌ22́Ơ℗+ societies has stimulated an examination of dominant peace-building thinking and practice. This research contributes to this thinking by examining nation-building in societies plagued by identity-related conflicts, specifically in South Sudan. It does so using the leadership process approach. The question driving this enquiry is to discover whether the leadership process approach can shed light on why South Sudan failed to build a nation that sustains peace. By using the leadership process approach, this study contributes to a better understanding of nation-building and how it contributes to both conflict and peace processes, allowing for a greater understanding of the relationship between nation-building and peace-building and why dominant state-building approaches to peace-building are incomplete. Using existing literature, the thesis provides a cohesive conceptual framework of the nation combining five elements: a national identity, link to a territory, a claim to political organisation and self-government, collective will and collective responsibility. This provides the key themes and indicators which are examined using the leadership process approach. The leadership process approach, which conceptualises leadership as a relationship between leaders, followers and situations, provides the analytical tools that are used to explain the emergence of the five elements of the conceptual framework of the nation. These tools include an examination of the leader-follower relationship based on mutuality and the exchange of influence, situational leadership and the sources of power. This framework is used to understand South Sudan. A case study approach is used to ensure a full examination of the relationship between nation-building and peace-building using the leadership process. Multiple forms of data collection were used including documentary analysis, a literature review and interviews. This data is analysed using the process tracing approach. The analysis includes South SudanaÌ22́Ơ4́Øs early history through to the signing of the most recent peace agreement in 2015. South SudanaÌ22́Ơ4́Øs early history of conquest and colonisation, the first Sudanese civil war, the second Sudanese civil war and the current South Sudanese civil war are all explored in depth. The study finds that the leadership process approach allows for a more nuanced and holistic understanding of the South Sudanese conflict specifically and nation-building in general. It shows that peace-building failed in South Sudan because of the conflict-reinforcing nature of the nation-building and leadership processes that have been replicated at national, regional and local levels. It concludes with several lessons learned for both nation-building and peace-building.

Understanding Peaceful and Violent Nation-building Through Leadership : a Case Study of South Sudan

Understanding Peaceful and Violent Nation-building Through Leadership : a Case Study of South Sudan PDF Author: Sonja Theron
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
Peace-building has reached a cross-roads. The high instance of conflict relapse in aÌ22́Ơ¿3post-conflictaÌ22́Ơ℗+ societies has stimulated an examination of dominant peace-building thinking and practice. This research contributes to this thinking by examining nation-building in societies plagued by identity-related conflicts, specifically in South Sudan. It does so using the leadership process approach. The question driving this enquiry is to discover whether the leadership process approach can shed light on why South Sudan failed to build a nation that sustains peace. By using the leadership process approach, this study contributes to a better understanding of nation-building and how it contributes to both conflict and peace processes, allowing for a greater understanding of the relationship between nation-building and peace-building and why dominant state-building approaches to peace-building are incomplete. Using existing literature, the thesis provides a cohesive conceptual framework of the nation combining five elements: a national identity, link to a territory, a claim to political organisation and self-government, collective will and collective responsibility. This provides the key themes and indicators which are examined using the leadership process approach. The leadership process approach, which conceptualises leadership as a relationship between leaders, followers and situations, provides the analytical tools that are used to explain the emergence of the five elements of the conceptual framework of the nation. These tools include an examination of the leader-follower relationship based on mutuality and the exchange of influence, situational leadership and the sources of power. This framework is used to understand South Sudan. A case study approach is used to ensure a full examination of the relationship between nation-building and peace-building using the leadership process. Multiple forms of data collection were used including documentary analysis, a literature review and interviews. This data is analysed using the process tracing approach. The analysis includes South SudanaÌ22́Ơ4́Øs early history through to the signing of the most recent peace agreement in 2015. South SudanaÌ22́Ơ4́Øs early history of conquest and colonisation, the first Sudanese civil war, the second Sudanese civil war and the current South Sudanese civil war are all explored in depth. The study finds that the leadership process approach allows for a more nuanced and holistic understanding of the South Sudanese conflict specifically and nation-building in general. It shows that peace-building failed in South Sudan because of the conflict-reinforcing nature of the nation-building and leadership processes that have been replicated at national, regional and local levels. It concludes with several lessons learned for both nation-building and peace-building.

Leadership, Nation-building and War in South Sudan

Leadership, Nation-building and War in South Sudan PDF Author: Sonja Theron
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0755622154
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
For over fifty years, the people of South Sudan fought for the right to be citizens of an independent nation-state. When this goal was finally achieved, however, it quickly became evident that the South Sudanese nation was not nearly as cohesive as hoped. The result has been a catastrophic civil war. Spanning South Sudan's nation-building struggle from its inception up until the current civil war, this book challenges the notion that the continued violence of this process can be reduced to either identity difference or the fault of individual leaders. Rather, it uses the leadership process to understand the complex progressions and relationships that have characterised South Sudan's nation-building trajectory. The book argues that the core driving force behind the current conflict in South Sudan can be found not in ethnicity, the “resource curse” or power struggle, but in a set of destructive relationships that have fueled violence and oppression in the country for the better part of a century. This cyclical leadership process has entrapped the country in an increasingly destructive and contradictory nation-building process that continues to spiral and disintegrate.

Leadership, Nation-building and War in South Sudan

Leadership, Nation-building and War in South Sudan PDF Author: Sonja Theron
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780755622177
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
"For over fifty years, the people of South Sudan fought for the right to be citizens of an independent nation-state. When this goal was finally achieved, however, it quickly became evident that the South Sudanese nation was not nearly as cohesive as hoped. The result has been a catastrophic civil war. Spanning South Sudan's nation-building struggle from its inception up until the current civil war, this book challenges the notion that the continued violence of this process can be reduced to either identity difference or the fault of individual leaders. Rather, it uses the leadership process to understand the complex progressions and relationships that have characterised South Sudan's nation-building trajectory. The book argues that the core driving force behind the current conflict in South Sudan can be found not in ethnicity, the "resource curse" or power struggle, but in a set of destructive relationships that have fueled violence and oppression in the country for the better part of a century. This cyclical leadership process has entrapped the country in an increasingly destructive and contradictory nation-building process that continues to spiral and disintegrate"--

Post-Conflict Security in South Sudan

Post-Conflict Security in South Sudan PDF Author: Nyambura Wambugu
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786735873
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Just eight years after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and two years after gaining independence, the world's newest nation state descended once more into violence and civil war. Why have policies of liberal peacebuilding failed to bring lasting stability to the region? And what now for South Sudan? Nyambura Wambugu, an academic with more than ten years' practical advisory and policymaking experience, adopts a holistic and multi-thematic approach to answer these crucial questions. Rooting her analysis as deeply as the initial militarisation of Sudan in the 1950s, Wambugu considers the complex and overlapping issues that have afflicted the region since 2005. In the process, Wambugu demonstrates the failure of the billions of dollars spent on liberal peacebuilding and elucidates the possibility of demilitarisation as a lasting and sustainable alternative. Such issues are common in post-conflict states, and the book therefore acts as a case study for better understanding the deeply entrenched causes of instability and identifying the most sustainable paths to peace. This meticulously researched account is essential reading for all students, researchers and policymakers working on post-conflict societies.

South Sudan's Civil War

South Sudan's Civil War PDF Author: John Young
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786993767
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
A mere two years after achieving independence, South Sudan in 2013 descended into violent civil war, refuting US government claims that the country's succession was a major foreign policy success and would end endemic conflict. Worse was to follow when the international community declared famine in 2017. In the first book-length study of the South Sudan civil war, John Young draws on his close but critical relationship with the rebel SPLM-IO leadership to reveal the true dynamics of the conflict, and exposes how the South Sudanese state was in crisis long before the outbreak of war. With insider knowledge of the histories and motivations of the rebellion's chief protagonists, Young argues considerable responsibility for the present state of South Sudan must be laid at the door of the US-led peace process. Linking the role of the international community with the country's opposition politics, South Sudan's Civil War is an essential guide to the causes and consequences of the violence that has engulfed one of Africa's most troubled nations.

South Sudan

South Sudan PDF Author: Marial Mach Aduot
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780648284864
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
In societies with socio-political stability, state principles and authority are enduring. While stability can be misleading, the prospects for a sense of relative peace and security could countervail violence. Even with a little persuasion, law enforcement agencies can prevent casual use of force, and that is the idea of a functioning state. The functioning state is characterised by the existence of cohesive socio-political capacity and is viewed by internal and external actors as legitimate. This study argues that South Sudan emerged as a fragile and fragmented; 'a country without a state' (Johnson, 2016, p. 16). This argument emphasises how the legacies of protracted civil war, between North and Southern rebels, various violent ethno-political factionalism in South/ern Sudan, and the enactment of politico-military policies present severe challenges. In this context, it worth arguing that South Sudan faces two challenging tasks: state-building and nation-building. The domestic dimension of sovereignty is punctuated by different degrees of violence and deficiency of the state's capacities. In that case, South Sudan lacks normative conceptualisation of the state as the effective domestic extensiveness of sovereignty. This book examines the challenges of building effective state and instruments of governance in South Sudan. This emphasis explores the deficiency of the state as an organising system of public authority within a state has led to decentralisation of violence at every level of South Sudanese state. In the conceptual context, the book argues that there is a real danger of failing to rebuild the emerging state to become the ultimate authority capable of maintaining the structure of the socio-political function. The theoretical emphasis on the relationship between peace and functioning state is vested in the international relation's understanding of the state as an omnipotent actor that upholds a claim to a legitimate monopoly over the use of force in a given territory (Weber, 1946; Lake, 2008). Based on this rationale, academics like (Waltz, 1979; Keohane, 1984) defined the state as a collective unit of global politics. As they focused on state functions and their interactions, these scholars regarded the states as the fundamental instrument of power (Bull 1977; Reus‐Smit, 1999; Wendt, 1999). Sovereign states, in this context, are perceived as indispensable objects of international politics. Therefore, states stood as an essential component of both peace and violence (Wendt, 1999). Deriving from this understanding, the international community has adopted a state building approach which associated the capacity for the prevention of war with the capacity of state's institutions (Lemay-Hébert, 2012). According to Copnall, (2014, p. 25), South Sudan is 'a state in search of a nation: a new country on the map populated by the people without a particularly strong common identity'. This argument implied lacks a consolidated statehood. Hence, formal institutions or structures of governance are too fragile and unable to perform political and security responsibilities associated with statehood. In this case, the authority to mobilised ethno-political armies and the use force is instead arrayed through 'a system of relations linking rules, not with the 'public' or 'even with the ruled, but with patrons, associates, clients, supporters, and rivals, who constitute the 'system' (Jackson and Rosberg, 1982, p. 19). The fragility of central authority means the South Sudanese state is unable to control the hostile behaviours of the ethno-political identities. At the opposite of sufficient sovereign authority lies limited statehood, which can manifest itself with lack the capacity to implement and enforce collective decisions, including the monopoly of the use of force.

Pathways for Peace

Pathways for Peace PDF Author: United Nations;World Bank
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464811865
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
Violent conflicts today are complex and increasingly protracted, involving more nonstate groups and regional and international actors. It is estimated that by 2030—the horizon set by the international community for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals—more than half of the world’s poor will be living in countries affected by high levels of violence. Information and communication technology, population movements, and climate change are also creating shared risks that must be managed at both national and international levels. Pathways for Peace is a joint United Nations†“World Bank Group study that originates from the conviction that the international community’s attention must urgently be refocused on prevention. A scaled-up system for preventive action would save between US$5 billion and US$70 billion per year, which could be reinvested in reducing poverty and improving the well-being of populations. The study aims to improve the way in which domestic development processes interact with security, diplomacy, mediation, and other efforts to prevent conflicts from becoming violent. It stresses the importance of grievances related to exclusion—from access to power, natural resources, security and justice, for example—that are at the root of many violent conflicts today. Based on a review of cases in which prevention has been successful, the study makes recommendations for countries facing emerging risks of violent conflict as well as for the international community. Development policies and programs must be a core part of preventive efforts; when risks are high or building up, inclusive solutions through dialogue, adapted macroeconomic policies, institutional reform, and redistributive policies are required. Inclusion is key, and preventive action needs to adopt a more people-centered approach that includes mainstreaming citizen engagement. Enhancing the participation of women and youth in decision making is fundamental to sustaining peace, as well as long-term policies to address the aspirations of women and young people.

Resisting Violence

Resisting Violence PDF Author: Moses John
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781601277459
Category : Conflict management
Languages : en
Pages : 17

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Book Description
This report focuses on the use of nonviolent collective action by civil society leaders, religious leaders, activists, and other South Sudanese to address the social, political, and economic grievances that have fueled the country’s ongoing civil conflicts. Supported by the Center for Applied Conflict Transformation and the Middle East and Africa Center at USIP and based on extensive interviews, including with the leaders of prominent nonviolent movements, the report focuses on the formidable challenges to building large-scale and sustainable nonviolent civic campaigns in South Sudan.

War and Statehood in South Sudan

War and Statehood in South Sudan PDF Author: Manfred Öhm
Publisher: Nomos/Bloomsbury
ISBN: 9781474243193
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This study provides empirically based insights into the relationship between war, statehood and peaceful conflict resolution during the second Sudanese civil war and following the independence of South Sudan 2011. Several influencing factors have been identified: the dynamics of political and ethnic conflict; the authoritarian character of the former rebel movement (SPLM); the role of the church and of traditional leaders in local peace processes; and how the enormous presence of international aid organizations has affected both war and statehood. The empirical findings suggest that South Sudan is not an example of state failure, but rather part of a broader process of state formation. As such, this collection argues that state-building is indeed possible during war. The analysis of the independent South Sudan post-2011 illustrates that the country is still struck by strong political and ethnic conflicts and continued violence. This is a book that is relevant and full of insights for social scientists and practitioners of development co-operation.

The State of Peacebuilding in Africa

The State of Peacebuilding in Africa PDF Author: Terence McNamee
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030466361
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
This open access book on the state of peacebuilding in Africa brings together the work of distinguished scholars, practitioners, and decision makers to reflect on key experiences and lessons learned in peacebuilding in Africa over the past half century. The core themes addressed by the contributors include conflict prevention, mediation, and management; post-conflict reconstruction, justice and Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration; the role of women, religion, humanitarianism, grassroots organizations, and early warning systems; and the impact of global, regional, and continental bodies. The book's thematic chapters are complemented by six country/region case studies: The Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan/South Sudan, Mozambique and the Sahel/Mali. Each chapter concludes with a set of key lessons learned that could be used to inform the building of a more sustainable peace in Africa. The State of Peacebuilding in Africa was born out of the activities of the Southern Voices Network for Peacebuilding (SVNP), a Carnegie-funded, continent-wide network of African organizations that works with the Wilson Center to bring African knowledge and perspectives to U.S., African, and international policy on peacebuilding in Africa. The research for this book was made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.