Timing and sequencing of post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding efforts in South Sudan

Abstract

The civil war in South Sudan raises the all-too familiar problem of the crisis of state formation and nation-building in post-colonial Africa. Based on extensive field research in Sudan and South Sudan between 2005 and 2013, this chapter argues that the international response to post-independence nation-building and post-liberation-war peacebuilding was not predicated on coherent and consistent timing and sequencing. If anything, the case of South Sudan illustrates that the rather inconsistent, uncoordinated post-war peacebuilding and statebuilding, as well as the lack of domestic legitimacy and ownership of the post-liberation-war peacebuilding and nation-building interventions, aggravated the fundamental grievances leading to the outbreak of the December 2013 civil war. What is more, South Sudan demonstrates how events on the ground and the pursuit of the strategic interests of the key national, regional, and international stakeholders framed and determined the nature, scope, timing, and even the sequencing of post-war peacebuilding and nation-building.