Conflict Entrepreneurs in Prolonged Civil War in South Sudan

Abstract

South Sudan has travelled a long and difficult journey in its quest to seek lasting peace which has been jeopardized by multifaceted factors and a multiplicity of actors including state and non-state operatives. Such determinants of internal peace processes, which have stood along the way, have been firmed up by deep and powerful players in this youngest state in Africa. Much clarity on what continues to transpire in South Sudan is grounded on scholarship which accounts for the roles of regional dimensions and international dynamics of conflict and peace processes in Sudan and South Sudan. Literature indicates that ethnonationalism, greed, grievance drivers, the Islamisation of politics when the south was part of the north, and the high-handedness of the Khartoum regime was central in the polarization of the state. We also examine the effect of natural resources particularly oil and militia factions in protracted conflicts in South Sudan. When South Sudan seceded in 2011, the state started from a fluid beginning, with weak institutionalization and the problem of ethnicization of the government and its related agencies. Although the explanations grounded on the conventional understanding of ethnicization of politics and loyalty deficits towards authority are critical, the state as an entity is bound by other activities that it maintains with external agents such as trade entrepreneurs who partly invest and occupy a wide economic space and agendas of wealth creation which informs the regimes economic wellbeing. This subject is understudied especially considering the contemporary peace processes and conflict resolution in South Sudan. In this study, I seek to explain the significance of conflict entrepreneurs in the peace process in South Sudan. Conflict Entrepreneurs consist of diverse actors including entities with commercial interests, MNCs, political elites, and states who directly and indirectly are involved in plundering resources and economic opportunities in civil war-torn South Sudan. The question is: which actors can be regarded as conflict entrepreneurs in South Sudan’s conflict context and why? Second, what roles do these entrepreneurs play in South Sudan’s peace process? Using governmental reports, newspaper analysis, and secondary research, these questions are addressed throughout this paper.