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Contemporary South Sudanese Nuer prophets play powerful roles in interpreting the moral limits of lethal violence and weighing the legitimacy claims of rival government leaders. Their activities remain largely invisible to external observers investigating the making and unmaking of fragile states. Focusing on South Sudan's tumultuous 2005–14 period, we reveal these hidden dynamics through analysis of the two most-powerful living western Nuer prophets. Gatdeang Dit, a male prophet of the divinity Deng, rejects all forms of violent aggression and fosters relations of peace and intermarriage with Dinka neighbors. Nyachol, a female prophet of Maani, inspires thousands of armed Nuer youth to retaliate against Dinka cattle raiders and other external threats while insisting on purification for Nuer–Nuer homicides. Despite their differences, both prophets invoke God's superior powers to push back against the simplified, secularized, and objectified forms of violence glorified by rival government elites. [prophecy, government, violence, legitimacy, uncertainty, Nuer, South Sudan]

Introduction: the challenges of governance and peacebuilding in South Sudan / Steven C. Roach and Derrick K. Hudson -- Conflict governance: The SPLA, factionalism, and peacemaking / Matthew Leriche -- Corruption as resistance: bureaucratic obstruction, ethno-spatial politics, and capital city planning in South Sudan / Naseem Badiey -- Failed leadership: corruption, kleptocracy, and democratic exclusion / Kuir E Garang -- The role of UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) in Protecting Civilians / Christopher Zambakari, Robert A Sanders, and Tarnjeet Kang -- Whither or whether US foreign policy in South Sudan? / Steven C. Roach -- South Sudan's hybrid court: the challenge of redressing victims of international crimes / Mohamed Babiker -- Conclusion: The permanent constitution and the elusive peace process / Steven C. Roach and Derrick K. Hudson

The report focuses on the most recent period of UNMISS' mandate (2014-18), aiming to provide a "snapshot" of the mission's work across its four main mandate areas: the protection of civilians (PoC), facilitation of humanitarian delivery, promotion of human rights, and support to the peace process. As a large, multidimensional peacekeeping operation – with 17,000 troops, 2,000 police and 2,000 civilians – UNMISS has been provided with significant resources and an extraordinarily ambitious mandate. Assessing the match between resources and mandate, and the ways the Mission has adapted its approaches to be effective in extremely challenging circumstances is a key objective of this report. Throughout its existence, UNMISS has been part of a much broader regional and international constellation of actors working to stabilise the country and encourage conflict parties to enter into a meaningful peace process. In many cases, UNMISS has played a limited supportive, coordinating, or otherwise indirect role in the overall trajectory of the country; in others, it is a central actor in the eyes of the people of South Sudan. This presents a challenge to any assessment of the Mission because, at most, UNMISS can be considered one contributor among many working together to end the civil war and lay the foundations for durable peace. Causality in these settings is difficult to establish. Nevertheless, drawing on the substantial data and analyses available, and interviews with more than 260 people in South Sudan and the region over several weeks, this study presents a set of evidence-based findings about the impact of the Mission and the factors that have enabled and inhibited the fulfilment of its mandate. ; publishedVersion

This article argues that military integration served a critical purpose in 2006, arguably preventing large-scale conflict within South Sudan and ensuring a level of stability prior to the CPA-mandated referendum on self-determination in 2011. Nonetheless, integration was poorly-conceived and implemented, and received limited support from third party actors that were more focused on rightsizing the SPLA and transforming it into a conventional, professional military. The de facto open-door nature of South Sudan's integration process created incentives for armed rebellion, while failed rightsizing initiatives increased pressure on the military integration process as the most expedient way of mitigating the threat these groups posed to stability. Integration thus became an end in and of itself rather than a transitional measure to contain former combatants while the government worked out a more long-term solution for South Sudan's security sector. Consequently, the SPLA was in a state of arrested development, preventing efforts to transform the military from gaining traction, and making the force more likely to fragment along factional lines during periods of heightened political competition.

This article examines the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) movement's stand on the South Sudan question. The aim here is to contribute to the ongoing debate over the MB's moderation. Throughout the civil war in Sudan, the MB consistently objected to South Sudanese secession. Yet, while it had traditionally framed its objection in religious terms, describing the South Sudanese struggle as a Christian conspiracy against Islam, in the decade preceding South Sudan's declaration of independence it moved to base its opposition on more practical grounds, revolving around issues such the absence of democracy, stability and infrastructure in South Sudan. This correlated with wider shifts in the MB. Since the 1990s, the movement has claimed to have undergone a transformation, adopting a moderate, pro-democratic stance. These statements persuaded many scholars that the MB has come to represent political moderation in both its domestic and international agenda. More recent works on the movement, however, have come to question the MB's moderation hypothesis, suggesting that even though the movement has changed its discourse and some aspects of its activism, this could not be seen as a linear process of moderation. This article uses the South Sudan case to further support this critique from a foreign policy perspective. It demonstrates that even though the MB changed its tactics and discourse, its goals remained unchanged- even when the circumstances and the normative environment changed dramatically. Moreover, it shows that at times of crisis, the liberal discourse gave way to the old-fashioned radical discourse of previous decades. (International Affairs (Oxford) / SWP)

En este artículo se presenta una descripción detallada de los principales grupos armados que han actuado en el sur de Sudán desde la independencia hasta la fundación de la República de Sudán del Sur, como consecuencia del escenario del confl icto armado que ha vivido el país durante prácticamente toda su existencia. El carácter y la evolución de dichos grupos ha sido muy diversa y su desarrollo no se ha limitado al sur del país, sino también al norte, donde la represión ejercida por los sucesivos gobiernos centrales ha propiciado la organización de diversas formas de resistencia y oposición armada. ; This article introduces a detailed description of the main armed groups that have been acting in the southern territories of Sudan, until the foundation of the Republic of South Sudan as a result of the armed confl ict the country has faced during practically the whole of its existence. Th e character and evolution of those groups has been quite diverse and their development has not been circumscribed to the South, for they have also arisen in the North, where armed repression by the successive central governments has yielded diverse forms of resistance and armed opposition. ; 43 - 55 ; alfredo.langa@iecah.org ; Semestral

The national liberation movements of the Oromos (in Ethiopia) & of the southern Sudanese are both anticolonial struggles with the aim of national self-determination. The emergence & development of these nationalisms by peoples first assigned colonial subject status & then second-class citizenship status by the Ethiopian & Sudanese nation-states, respectively, are described in the context of the global system. Their movements are similar in that resistance to colonial domination survived independence & carried itself into nationalism; problems & issues are also shared. The applicability of the principle of self-determination to these two cases is discussed. While self-determination is an option, the Ethiopian & Sudanese nation-states must also move toward becoming democratic, multinational, & civic states for durable peace to emerge in this area. 50 References. M. Pflum

Previous research on dehumanization has been conducted primarily in Western contexts, and outside ofperiods of ongoing and highly violent conflict. The present study, in contrast, examines grassroots-leveldehumanization between South Sudan's two largest ethnic groups—Dinka and Nuer—during an episodeof extreme interethnic violence. Using a mixed-methods approach we study levels of dehumanization andhow these attitudes are related to and structured around ongoing and/or very recent extreme violence.Whereas the results demonstrated mechanistic dehumanization by the Dinka participants vis-a`-vis theNuer, no similar dehumanization was found among the Nuer: although there were clear signs ofintergroup bias. Our focus groups demonstrated that dehumanization attitudes in South Sudan are to agreat degree structured around recent event of mass violence. In fact, practically all dehumanizingattitudes were related to these recent events and not to events previous, or to historicized stereotypes. Thecore contribution of this article is threefold. First, we deepen understanding of dehumanization byexamining a non-Western case with ongoing, highly violent, conflict. Second, we further knowledgeabout the psychological effects of events of mass violence. Third, we provide new insights to the situationin South Sudan by our analysis of intergroup perceptions.