ABSTRACT This article attempts to position education not only in the peacebuilding debate but also in the larger good governance debate about what makes a resilient social contract. We subscribe in this paper to a theoretical perspective that attributes the driver of civil wars to governance deficit that is manifested in absence of resilient social contract in terms of sustained agreement between citizens and state. We then ask the key question of whether and how…
Entries by Luka Biong Deng
Whether or not, and if, when, and then, how? Open questions on South Sudan’s first elections planned for December 2024 abound. On the one hand is the people’s demonstrated will for election to happen rather sooner than later, on the other is the magnitude of challenges against the backdrop of slow implementation of the peace agreement – and fear that an election gone wrong could exacerbate violence and humanitarian crises. The FES South Sudan Office…
This report is part of the collection of publications on “Education, Conflict and Civicness in South Sudan”, which is the outcome of a collaboration between the South Sudan Studies Association (SSSA) and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). We attempt in this paper to locate education not only in the peacebuilding debate, but also in the larger good governance debate about what makes a resilient social contract. In this paper we subscribe…
Abstract Over the past two decades, the rangelands of Eastern Africa have experienced sweeping changes associated with growing human populations, shifting land use, expanding livestock marketing and trade, and greater investment by domestic and global capital. These trends have coincided with several large shocks that were turning points for how rangeland inhabitants make a living. As livelihoods in the region’s rangelands transform in seemingly paradoxical directions, away from customary pastoralist production systems, greater insight is…
Definition: This article revisits debates about the root causes of civil wars with the aim of providing a coherent framework for addressing such drivers and building sustainable peace. It is argued in this article that the civil war is better explained by the absence of resilient social contract rather than the dominant theoretical perspectives that attribute causation of civil wars to grievances or greed. The resilient social contract framework with its three postulated drivers is…
This article assesses when diversity becomes a curse in Africa. The review of literature on the causation of civil wars shows gaps, weaknesses and lack of holistic framework of analysis. It is argued in this article that the risk of violent conflict is better explained in Africa by absence of social contract as a manifestation of governance deficit rather than the presence of grievances and greed. Recognizing these gaps, this article uses the heuristic social…
The signing of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (RARCSS) in September 2018 raised debate not only about its added value to the 2015 Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (ARCSS) but also the effectiveness of style of mediation pursued by mediators. Although there are divergent views on whether the RARCSS will deliver sustainable peace or reach the same fate of ARCSS, these views can…
After its hard-won independence in 2011, South Sudan slid quickly into violent conflict and became a theatre of enormous human suffering. This article attempts to answer the question of what went wrong, and what prospects exist for South Sudanese to forge a resilient social contract to build and sustain peace. It employs an analytical framework postulating three drivers of such a contract, at the heart of which is how core issues of conflict that underpin…
The question of the future status of Abyei remains a deeply contested issue between Sudan and the independent South Sudan. The connection between the political violence in Abyei and eruption of the two civil wars in Sudan is sparsely documented, but this history reveals the character of the Abyei problem. This article provides an analysis of the role of political violence in the emergence of the dispute around the status of Abyei. It charts the…
This article is an attempt to gain a nuanced understanding of the status of livelihood diversification in the context of civil war. The empirical findings of this article indicate that diversification is not always the best livelihood strategy option in the context of the past civil war. Link to publication