Leadership, nation-building and war in South Sudan: the problems of statehood and collective will

Abstract

Leadership, nation-building and war in South Sudan explores the historical contradictions in the foundation of the South Sudanese state as well as the country's future prospects. The book is based on fieldwork research that the author conducted between 2015 and 2018. With a historical approach, Sonja Theron seeks to explain why ‘South Sudan has not known peace since 1955’ (p. 15). Here, the author is alluding to the reigniting of old political feuds, including the outbreak of the civil war in 2013. Theron revisits the history of conquests, slave trade and the Islamic sentiments that propelled the Mahdist revolt of the late 1880s, which she places in the context of the push for independence, which lasted from 1821 until the outbreak of the Sudanese civil war in 1955. With the support of Christian missionaries and the Anya Nya liberation movement in the 1960s, a South Sudanese political consciousness flourished. The book also illustrates how the shaky foundation of the postcolonial state triggered the emergence of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in 1983, with a broad-based alliance against marginalization. Three decades later, the SPLM invoked the right to self-determination for South Sudan's independence in 2011. Crucially, Theron points to the peace agreements that the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) mediated between 2002 and 2018, and their failure to address the root causes of the conflict. According to the author, IGAD sought to accommodate the political priorities of different factions, which allowed them to continue plundering the state and which ultimately worsened the country's underdevelopment and political fragility.