Stabilization and Local Conflicts: Communal and Civil War in South Sudan

Jana Krause

doi:10.1080/17449057.2019.1640505

Abstract

Scholars have long argued that local conflicts need to be integrated into the analysis of civil war and peacebuilding. Yet, systematic research of the linkages between communal violence and civil war is sparse. This contribution connects communal violence research to the stabilization and peacekeeping debate. To further a more systematic analysis of communal conflicts, I distinguish various types and their linkages to civil war and peacebuilding. In South Sudan, large-scale communal conflicts—communal wars—precede the country’s civil war and are likely to succeed it. Their protracted and fundamentally political nature means that they cannot be addressed as ‘local conflicts’ in isolation from national politics and state institutions. I argue that military force may temporarily stabilize a conflict zone but the horizontal linkages between urban and rural communal conflicts and their vertical linkages to national political processes require concerted efforts on the national and the sub-state level to avoid renewed conflict cycles and contribute to lasting stability.

Highlights

Peacekeepers face both civil war and communal conflicts in a number of countries they are deployed to
In all three UN missions on the African continent that include ‘stabilization’ in their title—in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Mali, and the Central African Republic (CAR)—communal conflicts are recognized as a prime source of the instability that threatens civilians and undermines the political process
The third part focuses on the case of South Sudan to illustrates how communal conflicts interlink with civil war there and how the legacies of civilian armament have profound implications for the national political process, peacekeeping, and stability

Summary

Introduction

Peacekeepers face both civil war and communal conflicts in a number of countries they are deployed to. The third part focuses on the case of South Sudan to illustrates how communal conflicts interlink with civil war there and how the legacies of civilian armament have profound implications for the national political process, peacekeeping, and stability.

Results

Conclusion