Secession Of South Sudan Research Articles

The Socio-Economic Impact of an Abrupt Loss of Oil: A Synthetic Control Approach in the Case of Sudan

With the secession of South Sudan in 2011, the Republic of Sudan experienced a sudden loss of more than 70% of its oil reserves. Few countries have experienced such a dramatic macroeconomic adjustment within a short period of time. While earlier studies have explored the socio-economic impacts of oil discoveries, little is known about what happens in the case of an abrupt reversal of an oil windfall. We make use of the synthetic control method to isolate the effects of such an abrupt oil loss. We find little evidence of oil-induced socio-economic effects with the exception of higher unemployment.

Oil, export diversification and economic growth in Sudan: evidence from a VAR model

There is an extensive literature demonstrating a positive link between export diversification and economic growth. In parallel, the resource curse thesis posits export concentration as an important mechanism curtailing growth in mineral-rich countries. Our analysis contributes to this literature by empirically investigating the interaction between oil dependence captured by the share of oil rents in GDP and export diversification and economic growth for Sudan. We do this with the help of a VAR model using annual data between 1960 and 2018. In comparison to earlier studies, our dataset covers also Sudan’s post-oil boom period, which coincided with a substantial drop in oil dependence after the 2011 secession of South Sudan. We find that oil rents appear to have a statistically significant and negative effect on export diversification, although contemporaneously rather than in the long-term. However, we find no evidence of a statistically significant impact of either oil dependence or export diversification on economic growth, as suggested by the resource curse hypothesis.

Post-secession Sudan and South Sudan: A Comparative Study of Economic Performance, Export Diversification, and Institutions

Oil has played a determinant role in the economic development of Sudan and South Sudan before and after their separation. The introduction of oil into the Sudanese economy in 1999 has been associated with many challenges, especially those related to export diversification, and institutional quality. Oil dependency increased with the growth of oil share in total exports. Therefore, the secession of South Sudan in 2011 represents a great shock to both economies. This event creates a situation in which the new country experienced a sudden influx of oil revenues. At the same time, the parent country witnessed a sudden loss of 70% of its proven oil reserves. This makes the case of Sudan unique and provides a very rare opportunity for macroeconomists to address the impacts of this shock on both economies. This paper uses the recent secondary data of both counties to analyze and compare the impact of oil revenues transfer on Sudan and South Sudan’s economies in the post-secession period. The conclusion of this paper shows that oil loss has created incentives for better economic performance in Sudan. Reciprocally, South Sudan experiences a premature oil dependence that led to export concentration, institutional degradation, and macroeconomic instability.

Don’t Call Me a Foreigner: Place Making in Khartoum and Juba between 2006–2018

This article is based on long-term research with South Sudanese who lived in Khartoum before the secession of South Sudan from Sudan and who moved to Juba between 2006 and 2013. Taking the case of South Sudanese belonging to the Bari, an ethnic group originally from the area around Juba, I argue that politics of return forces people to identify with specific forms of belonging and relate this belonging to specific places. Furthermore, people have to make sense out of places, which are perceived as their homes by others, but in many cases are hostile and strange for them. Conversely, they claim to rightfully belong to places, which are, in fact, constructed as the place of others. My argument is based on the dialectical relationship between two dimensions of place: place as a site of identification and as a place which Appadurai (1995) calls a location, where people have experiences and create social relations ( Schultz 2012 ). By using the concept of translocality, I want to stress the importance of context ( Anthias 2012 ). In their attempts to sustain their livelihoods, South Sudanese not only have to make sense out of new places, but also have to maintain relationships to places they have lived before. Taking the case of two women and their families moving from one place (Khartoum) to another (Juba) and vice versa, I argue that people not only try to maintain locality but also to counteract the politics of belonging by creating new ways of identification which I will call the politics of belonging from below.

Qatari-Turkish and Saudi-Emirati alliance: Struggle for influence in Sudan

The article is devoted to the analysis of the confrontation between the Qatari-Turkish and Saudi Emirati blocs for influence in the Republic of Sudan. It was found out that in addition to the traditional struggle for the promotion of interests between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Sudan, a new player appeared in the geopolitical arena in the person of Qatar and Turkey. The Qatari-Turkish bloc was particularly active in strengthening its positions during the events of the "Arab Spring", provoking a reaction from Saudi Arabia and its ally, the United Arab Emirates. To weaken Turkish-Qatari-Sudanese relations, the Saudi-Emirati bloc provided financial and material assistance to Khartoum, which was in a difficult socio-economic situation as a result of the secession of South Sudan. However, the efforts of Saudi Arabia and the UAE did not lead to the desired result and forced them to resort to more decisive actions. As a result of sabotage by the military and economic elites supported by the Saudi-Emirati bloc in the spring of 2019, the thirty-year-old Sudanese regime of O. al-Bashir was overthrown. The military elite came to power, which managed to ease the socio-economic tension in the country. Financial and military assistance from Riyadh and Abu Dhabi played an important role in this. The fall of the regime of O. al-Bashir dealt a serious blow to the positions of Qatar and Turkey in Sudan, simultaneously strengthening the Saudi-Emirati positions. Despite this, Qatar and Turkey have not lost hope of restoring their influence in Sudan and continue to try to establish diplomatic, financial, military and cultural relations.

The ambiguities of self‐determination: IGAD and the secession of South Sudan

AbstractThis paper examines the 1994 Declaration of Principles (DoP) for the resolution of the Sudanese civil war, adopted by the Inter‐Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). This was the only occasion on which an African inter‐state organization included separation as an option for resolving a civil war. It was the basis for South Sudan's independence in 2011. The DoP was drafted by the Ethiopian government, and imposed on belligerent parties, both of which were, at the time, unionist. The paper identifies two concepts of self‐determination within the DoP— independence for colonial territories and the Marxist‐Leninist idea of self‐determination for national groups. The rationale for including both arose from Ethiopian leadership within IGAD. The paper also examines the diverse Sudanese debates on self‐determination, including several strands of nationalism, Islamism, and the ‘New Sudan’ of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). There was radical disagreement among Sudanese on national identity and self‐determination, creating ambiguities that ironically facilitated the exercise in southern self‐determination in 2011. Drawing on documentation of Sudanese negotiations, the paper examines how the DoP unlocked the Sudanese debate on the issue, and how the different concepts fared up to the time of the independence of South Sudan.

Language Policy and Students’ Protests: The Case of Southern Sudan, 1960–2005

This article is based on Richard Ruiz’s language orientations and the constitution of UNESCO. The central objective of this article is to examine the role played language to escalate conflict and confrontations in the mainland of Sudan. In addition to existing literature on the issue, the study also relied on primary data and interviewed people who participated in those protests. One of the major findings of this study is the policy to use Arabic as a language of instruction in schools. The argument was that Arabic could bring about national unity. This policy was opposed in schools in Southern Sudan through students’ protests. The people in the South thought Arabic language was a disregard for their rich cultures, values, and beliefs. South Sudanese argued that Arabic was not indigenous to them and its use was going to result in poor performance in school examinations. In a way, these protests coupled with civil wars contributed to the secession of South Sudan.

The Most Important Agricultural Products that Sudan Exports and the Mechanisms to Develop

This study is dealing with the most essential agricultural products that Sudan exports them abroad and looks for the mechanisms of developing and improving for those products. The purpose of this paper is to find out the agricultural products that Sudan should depend on them as alternative export goods (instead of petrol which has gone with South Sudan after the separation), also this research aims to discover the mechanisms that used in increasing and expanding the production of those products. This paper is depending on the literature review and uses descriptive approach in order to describe the most substantial agricultural products that Sudan exports as alternative goods. The paper selected this method, because it is suitable. Data and information of this work have been gathered from different sources such as books, journals, newspapers, websites, government reports and other documents that are relevant to the title. The findings of this study are: the results indicates that, more than 65% of the population of Sudan depend on the cultivation, also, it shows that oil seed such as sesame seed, Cotton and Gum Arabic are the most substantial farming products that supply Sudan with hard currency, after the secession of South Sudan which was very rich part of Sudan with petrol. In addition to that, the paper has come out with the mechanisms that will be used in improving and increasing those products, these tools are; implementation of genetic engineering system in the areas of agriculture in Sudan, application of cultivation without tillage system and choosing the suitable time of agriculture. Cultivation development is one of the sustainable development goals, which targeting the increasing of productivity in rural areas, countryside is suffering from the lack of fresh water and the negative effects of climate change. Agriculture in Sudan, particularly Darfur and Kordofan regions is seasonable system that depend on the rain in autumn specifically the growing of millets, sorghum, oil crops for instance sesame seeds and water-melon. In Sudan, 80 percent of nonpatrol exports are from the agriculture and its derivations, therefore it contributes in narrowing the gap of unemployment.

Power and influence in post-secession South Sudan: A leadership perspective on nation-building

ABSTRACT Following South Sudan's secession in 2011, the country faced significant political, social and economic challenges. The country emerged from a long andarduous nation-building journey, including almost 50 years of violent conflict, that would continue after declaring independence. This nation-building process would suffer a significant set-back in December 2013 when the most recent civil war broke out. This article provides a new perspective on South Sudan's nation-building trajectory that tends towards violence and complicates peace-building. It does so by utilising the leadership process approach from the Leadership Studies literature. While popular literature and commentary tends to fault the South Sudanese elite for the current crisis, there has not been a systematic effort to understand the leadership challenge and its role in conflict, peace and nation-building in South Sudan. In this article, South Sudan's nation-building process and its three primary components of (a) identity construction, (b) statehood and (c) collective will and responsibility, are analysed from a leadership perspective, focusing on issues of power and influence. The conclusion is reached that South Sudan's nation-building has been and will likely continue to trend towards a violent process due to a leadership process that lacks mutuality and is founded on insufficient sources of power.

THE ECOLOGICAL, SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS ON PASTORALISTS' ACCESS TO WATER, BLUE NILE STATE (SUDAN)

Abstract This article addresses the ecological, socio-economic and political constraints facing pastoralists' water access rights in Blue Nile State, south-eastern Sudan, over the last five decades. It examines the main constraints on pastoralists' access to water and looks at such issues as climate change, increasing human population, the expansion of agriculture, the expansion of Dinder National Park, civil war and the new international border created after the secession of South Sudan in 2011.

DETERMINANTS OF SUCCESSFUL SECESSIONS IN POST-COLONIAL AFRICA: THE CASE OF SOUTH SUDAN

Desde o início das independências africanas nos anos 1960, diversos países vivenciaram rebeliões envolvendo grupos etno-linguísticos ou comunidades marginalizadas, que exigem a partição territorial de Estados existentes com o objetivo de constituir nações novas e independentes. Apesar da alta incidência de conflitos secessionistas no continente, apenas dois casos conseguiram com sucesso estabelecer novos Estados na África pós-colonial: Eritreia, em 1993, e Sudão do Sul, em 2011. A fundação do Sudão do Sul ocorreu em um contexto continental e global hostil à emergência de novos Estados. Tal evento deu início a um intenso debate na literatura a respeito dos fatores que melhor explicam a partição do país. Uma parte da academia sugere que fatores domésticos são cruciais no processo, enquanto outra defende serem fatores externos os decisivos para a separação. Este estudo oferece uma nova perspectiva ao debate argumentando que uma combinação entre fatores domésticos e externos foi decisiva para o sucesso da luta secessionista do Sudão do Sul. O artigo se baseia na análise qualitativa de fontes secundárias e representa uma contribuição única ao debate sobre os determinantes para as secessões bem-sucedidas na África pós-colonial.

REFLECTING ON THE ROOT CAUSES OF SOUTH SUDAN SECESSION: WHAT CAN OTHER AFRICAN LEADERS LEARN?

The secession of South Sudan from Sudan in 2011 remains a significant development on Africa’s political landscape. It will continue to shape and influence the direction of secessionist conflict management and resolution dynamics on the continent. This is not because it was the first secession case in Africa given the fact that, previously, Eritrea had seceded from Ethiopia in 1993. Rather, unlike the Eritrea-Ethiopian case, the South Sudan secession case has a unique and edifying pre- and post- colonial historical narrative whose instructive value to post-colonial governments and governance processes in Africa remains remotely studied and utilized. Despite numerous research on pre-secession Sudan, there has been limited constructively aligned research that unravels the root causes of South Sudan secession, and sift lessons that can be progressively applied to either avoid and prevent secession in Africa, or constructively manage secessionist pressures in a way that retains peace, stability and national development. Using secondary data analysis, this paper explores the root causes of South Sudan secession with a view to discern and deduce adaptable and appropriate lessons that can be learnt by African governments at a time when secessionist conflicts are on the rise.

English

Since the founding of Southern Sudan, first as a region and later as a country, the Dinka tribe has continued to exercise absolute control and domination. Following secession of South Sudan, tribalism got elevated to a level that threatens the very unity of the new country. This study was therefore based on the hypothesis that Dinka lead governments in South Sudan cannot accept any system of governance which will not leave them in charge of leadership of the country and this will inevitably push the Equatorians to opt to secede to form their own country. Just as the Southerners felt that they had been handed over to a new colonial master when the British trusteeship of Sudan ended in 1956, so too do the people of Equatoria feel that they have become subject people of the Dinka dominant tribe, following secession of the region from Sudan. The study brought out the factors that perpetuate the ever-enduring turbulent relationships between the Equatorians and the Dinkas as well as mechanism for eliminating the factors if unity of South Sudan were to be preserved- colonial annexation of otherwise independent Equatoria territory to South Sudan as well as marginalisation and domination by the Dinka tribe. Carrying out research in this area was not only necessary, but also timely as there is on-going search to find solution for the country’s chronic tribal problems. Ethnicity in governance and all spheres of life have gotten so deeply entranced that it is affecting the Equatorians disproportionately and thus meriting the search for other ways of governance in the country. Key words: Domination, control, leadership, tribalism, ethnicity, secession, unity, governance, perpetuate, ever-enduring turbulent relationship.

The Venture of Separatism: Lessons From the Secession of South Sudan

This study examines the extent to which separatism in South Sudan led the failure of the state and its institutions and aims to draw lessons from this experience. In order to do so, this qualitative case study uses an empirical inquiry on the real problems that engendered immature separatism and subsequently a failed state in South Sudan. The approach of this study is constructivist in the sense that it considers a multitude of factors explaining the failure of Southern Sudanese separatism in its statehood and nation building enterprise. This study finds that culture and identity alone do not justify separatism, and that when culturally based separatism turns into a state, the state fails. The paper also examines and refutes single-point analysis arguments trying to explain state failure in South Sudan by reducing the causes to a single problem. It rules out the validity and reliability of single-point analyses. It starts with building the argument against the culturalist approach that holds culture as justifier for independence. It continues to probe the statist argument that blames the failure of the state on the actions of other states. It also examines the validity of the internationalist argument that posits with confidence that the international community was able to make the South Sudanese state succeed but did not. The study finally probes the institutionalist argument that holds military professionalism and other societal institutions key to explain the problem and offer its solution in South Sudan. The paper argues that the failure of separatism in South Sudan has much to do with structural development and modernization of society and its institution, that is, if the south were socially and institutionally modern enough to embrace statehood - which is a modern concept, it would be ready for a mature separatist venture and a successful state building process.

The impact of remittances on Sudan’s economic growth: does the exchange rate matter?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the presence of the Dutch disease hypothesis through examining the remittance-growth nexus using annual data for Sudan covering the period 1977-2015. The paper seeks to answer the following critical questions: what is the impact of remittance on Sudanese economy? How exchange rate influences the impact of remittance on growth? To what extent the impact of remittance on growth differs between the short and long run.Design/methodology/approachThe paper employs the autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) technique because of its several advantages.FindingsThe ARDL results show evidence against the existence of such a hypothesis. More specifically, the results show that over time, due to the structured nature of the economy, remittances may affect economic growth negatively through several mechanisms including the depreciation rather than the appreciation of the exchange rate.Originality/valueAfter 2011 and the secession of South Sudan, Sudan lost more than 80 per cent of foreign exchange revenues which reflected in the sharp gap between the official rate and the parallel exchange rate equal to 150 per cent. To lessening this gap, the attention was given to expatriates to encourage them to transfer their remittances through official channels. Since remittance and exchange rate mechanism may affect growth positively or negatively, no study addressed this possibility. This is the first empirical study in this matter that considers both the temporary and the permanent impacts.

New Histories of New Nations: South Sudan and Sudanese history

New Histories of New Nations:South Sudan and Sudanese history Nicki Kindersley A History of South Sudan: From Slavery to Independence By Øystein H. Rolandsen & M.W. Daly. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Anti-Colonial Resistance in Sudan By Elena Vezzadini. Oxford: James Currey, 2015. Darfur: Colonial violence, sultanic legacies and local politics 1916–56 By Chris Vaughan. Oxford: James Currey, 2015. South Sudan: A New History for a New Nation By Douglas H. Johnson. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2016. Civil Uprisings in Modern Sudan By W.J. Berridge. London: Bloomsbury, 2016. Breaking Sudan: The Search for Peace By Jok Madut Jok. London: Oneworld, 2017. The Sudans have undergone major upheavals over the last fifteen years. By 2005, fifteen years of civil war was brought to an end in South Sudan, but conflicts escalated across Sudan's other borderlands, particularly in Darfur and in the Nuba Mountains. President Bashir's regime has continued to entrench itself in Khartoum, moving from a sanctioned pariah state to a partner in Europe's attempts to control north African migration. South Sudan has taken the opposite trajectory. From its secession in 2011, its state- and nation-building project has foundered: its militarised elites have continued patterns of violent and repressive government of an alienated and impoverished citizenry, while competing over resources and power, and sinking the country into renewed civil war and myriad internal conflicts. Over this period, there has been opportunity for a new wave of research on Sudan and South Sudan. This opening up is not just of new travel and internal research opportunities, but of archives and a growing international and local academic community. The work reviewed here, all published over 2015 to 2017, is part of this resurgence. All the books here (and the nature of reviewing them together) support a key point made by many scholars of the region: that Sudan and South Sudan must not be studied separately, and broken off from each other into the intellectual peripheries of Middle East and African studies respectively. These works demonstrate the necessity of reading the Sudans' history as multiple, entangled political histories across newly-established borders. All the reviewed books also attempt two things. They fight against national and international stereotypes and oversimplifications of the countries, rooted partly in a significant dearth of research into the Sudans over the twentieth century. And more specifically, they seek to challenge dominant national narratives of history and historical memory. Both Berridge and Vezzadini work to situate their Sudan scholarship within both Middle East and Africanist literature, and in doing so, challenge each field; Vaughan and Johnson set out strong cases against the "isolation" of Darfur and South Sudan, in turn; and Jok, Rolandsen and Daly all fight against the supposed inevitability of South Sudan's secession and "failure." Those of us who study the Sudans often feel we have to do this quite basic fire-fighting for two main reasons. Firstly, there are powerful common narratives around the Sudans, particularly around South Sudan's secession and descent into renewed civil war over from 2011 to the present; and secondly, as Rolandsen, Daly and Johnson point out here, there is still a dearth of deeply researched work on both countries, and so much work still to do to bring the Sudans' precolonial, colonial and post-independence historiography up to speed with either Middle East or African studies in general. And so all of the reviewed books are working towards common ends: to bind the Sudans into their geographical and intellectual context; to illuminate histories previously hidden by a common but limited research focus on Sudans' states and wars; and to re-examine methods and sources, particularly in the search for histories beyond elites and central state politics. New Histories for New Nations? Many scholars are engaged in writing a 'new national history' for the newest country in the world, and there are two examples here: Øystein H. Rolandsen and Martin W. Daly's A History of South Sudan: From slavery to independence (2016), and Douglas H. Johnson's South Sudan: A new history for a new nation (2016). These national histories are best read together, because their arguments and perspectives cut across each other...

South Sudan Secession: Modelling the Fiscal Shock and Its Spillover Effects

In this paper we set up a macroeconomic model designed to describe small open economy enduring political uncertainty arising from split of a country into two independent parts. The findings in the paper indicate, stabilization of asset markets in either country at the post-secession era depends on political stability, which will impact on foreign currency inflows to each country. Our model predicts that if political unrest continues after the split of the country, the foreign currency reserves at Central Bank in each country will deteriorate over time, and that may lead to domestic currency depreciation in terms of hard currencies. The model also predicts that expanding budget deficit and declining official reserves will eventually force governments to abandon fixed exchange rate system in favor of more flexible exchange rate system that result in further acceleration of both domestic inflation rate and domestic money growth rate. As a result, the post-secession period is likely to be characterized by economic instability and political unrest in the two sides unless economic cooperation between the two countries maintained.

Sharing Sudan's Burden: Options for Post-Secession Debt Apportionment

Sudan faces an exceedingly high debt burden for an economy of its size. Standing at 80% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Sudan’s external debt was US$43.6 billion in 2014, of which 87% was arrears. As part of the secession agreement, Sudan would take over all of the pre-secession debt provided Sudan would enter the HIPC process by October 2016, with support from South Sudan. If this fails, negotiations to apportion the debt would ensue. This paper explores potential options for dividing Sudan‘s external debt at the date of South Sudan secession that take into account different metrics of post-secession debt apportionments around the world. Based on debt division metrics — such as beneficiary rule, population size, GDP, and land size — Sudan’s external debt obligations could range between 94 percent of external debt (US$37 billion) and 67 percent of external debt (US$27 billion). South Sudan’s debt obligations could range from 6 percent of external debt (US$3 billion) to 33 percent of external debt (US$13 billion). The debt division estimates based on the beneficiary rule are derived utilizing World Bank Group loans as a proxy for evaluating options available for apportioning Sudan’s debt burden as it is exceedingly difficult to trace every single loan distributed to Sudan.

Hakamat and Peacebuilding 2004-2012

Five years after the secession of South Sudan from Sudan, peace building activities in Sudan have not yet come to an end and violent conflicts in Sudan have not stopped – rather, they intensified – while international attention has shifted to other regions of the world. Darfur remains a crisis region, and the southern, eastern, and western edges of the Sudan are still conflict-ridden, even increasingly so. This article looks into how peacebuilding projects engaged Hakamat – female singers and poets – to spread the message of peace between 2004 and 2012. This international involvement was influenced by two things: the image of Hakamat among the riverine North Sudanese and the international peacebuilding community as `troublemakers´; and the fact that they contradict the image of women as passive victims of violent conflicts. It was for these reasons that the Hakamat became a `hot topic´ with organizations working in Darfur. Although the issue was not prominently reported in the newspapers, the organizations working on peacebuilding in Sudan worked keenly with the women singers and poets known as `Hakamat´, who are said to influence the violent conflict in Darfur through their songs and poetry. The Hakamat perhaps first gained the attention of these organizations as potential peacebuilding actors and participants in peacebuilding workshops because of their `extraordinary´ role as women who can influence issues that were regarded as `male affairs´: that is, conflict and violence. Equally, the Government of Sudan also sought to involve the Hakamat in its political processes in Darfur since the late 1980s.This article is based on an unpublished Diploma thesis (Adam 2013), the research for which was carried out in the Greater Khartoum area between August 2012 and April 2013.

Conflict with Others at a Bleeding Frontier: The Case of Tagoi in the Northeastern Nuba Mountains – Sudan

This article looks at the escalating conflict between the Tagoi and Hawazma and their allies over natural resources and political authority in the north-eastern Nuba Mountains, from the Tagoi’s perspective. It explains why and how the Tagoi Area has become a free zone for settlement by the Hawazma and their allies, who have succeeded in developing an independent native administration in the area and have begun to contest the Tagoi’s rights to political authority and land. It illustrates how security concerns associated with the Second Civil War between the government of Sudan (GoS) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) first and the Sudan/South Sudan international border after the secession of South Sudan in 2011 have contributed to the escalation of this conflict. It also shows how this conflict has recently become entangled with the armed conflict between the GoS and the SPLM/A-North, thus attaining a new dimension.