For over fifty years, the people of South Sudan fought for the right to be citizens of an independent nation-state. When this goal was finally achieved, however, it quickly became evident that the South Sudanese nation was not nearly as cohesive as hoped. The result has been a catastrophic civil war. Spanning South Sudan's nation-building struggle from its inception up until the current civil war, this book challenges the notion that the continued violence of this process can be reduced to either identity difference or the fault of individual leaders. Rather, it uses the leadership process to understand the complex progressions and relationships that have characterised South Sudan's nation-building trajectory. The book argues that the core driving force behind the current conflict in South Sudan can be found not in ethnicity, the “resource curse” or power struggle, but in a set of destructive relationships that have fueled violence and oppression in the country for the better part of a century. This cyclical leadership process has entrapped the country in an increasingly destructive and contradictory nation-building process that continues to spiral and disintegrate.

"For over fifty years, the people of South Sudan fought for the right to be citizens of an independent nation-state. When this goal was finally achieved, however, it quickly became evident that the South Sudanese nation was not nearly as cohesive as hoped. The result has been a catastrophic civil war. Spanning South Sudan's nation-building struggle from its inception up until the current civil war, this book challenges the notion that the continued violence of this process can be reduced to either identity difference or the fault of individual leaders. Rather, it uses the leadership process to understand the complex progressions and relationships that have characterised South Sudan's nation-building trajectory. The book argues that the core driving force behind the current conflict in South Sudan can be found not in ethnicity, the "resource curse" or power struggle, but in a set of destructive relationships that have fueled violence and oppression in the country for the better part of a century. This cyclical leadership process has entrapped the country in an increasingly destructive and contradictory nation-building process that continues to spiral and disintegrate"--

Peace-building has reached a cross-roads. The high instance of conflict relapse in aÌ22́Ơ¿3post-conflictaÌ22́Ơ℗+ societies has stimulated an examination of dominant peace-building thinking and practice. This research contributes to this thinking by examining nation-building in societies plagued by identity-related conflicts, specifically in South Sudan. It does so using the leadership process approach. The question driving this enquiry is to discover whether the leadership process approach can shed light on why South Sudan failed to build a nation that sustains peace. By using the leadership process approach, this study contributes to a better understanding of nation-building and how it contributes to both conflict and peace processes, allowing for a greater understanding of the relationship between nation-building and peace-building and why dominant state-building approaches to peace-building are incomplete. Using existing literature, the thesis provides a cohesive conceptual framework of the nation combining five elements: a national identity, link to a territory, a claim to political organisation and self-government, collective will and collective responsibility. This provides the key themes and indicators which are examined using the leadership process approach. The leadership process approach, which conceptualises leadership as a relationship between leaders, followers and situations, provides the analytical tools that are used to explain the emergence of the five elements of the conceptual framework of the nation. These tools include an examination of the leader-follower relationship based on mutuality and the exchange of influence, situational leadership and the sources of power. This framework is used to understand South Sudan. A case study approach is used to ensure a full examination of the relationship between nation-building and peace-building using the leadership process. Multiple forms of data collection were used including documentary analysis, a literature review and interviews. This data is analysed using the process tracing approach. The analysis includes South SudanaÌ22́Ơ4́Øs early history through to the signing of the most recent peace agreement in 2015. South SudanaÌ22́Ơ4́Øs early history of conquest and colonisation, the first Sudanese civil war, the second Sudanese civil war and the current South Sudanese civil war are all explored in depth. The study finds that the leadership process approach allows for a more nuanced and holistic understanding of the South Sudanese conflict specifically and nation-building in general. It shows that peace-building failed in South Sudan because of the conflict-reinforcing nature of the nation-building and leadership processes that have been replicated at national, regional and local levels. It concludes with several lessons learned for both nation-building and peace-building.

Over the past 50 years of independence in Africa, no event has captured the minds and imaginations of activists, scholars and policy makers and has challenged the conscience of the global community like political violence. South Sudan has just completed a referendum on self-determination. The Republic of South Sudan was inaugurated on 9 July 2011. The challenge that lies ahead for the new republic is that faced by all African states: it must reform the colonial state inherited at independence, build a more inclusive political community that effectively manages diversity, upholds the rule of law and practises democracy in governance. This article contributes to the development of the New Sudan Framework, an alternative solution to the intractable conflict in Sudan and a model for solving the problems of political violence in Africa. In the first section the author argues that the current rise in ethnic violence across South Sudan and the border regions is due to the failure to reform the colonial state inherited from Great Britain in the late 20th century. Violence in the disputed regions is analysed to illustrate the dilemma that faces both North and South Sudan in a post-referendum era. Lastly, the author argues that the way out of the current predicament in the disputed regions and the way to build a more inclusive political community in the North and South that respects unity in diversity is contained in the conceptual framework known as the New Sudan, which was articulated by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).

South Sudan is the world's youngest independent country. This book provides a general history of the new country.

René Grotenhuis analyses policies intended to bring stability to fragile states and shows how they ignore the question of what gives people a sense of belonging to a nation-state.

Winner of the Grawmeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, 2018 Winner of the Joseph Lepgold Prize Winner of the Best Books in Conflict Studies (APSA) Winner of the Best Book in Human Rights (ISA) In Making and Unmaking Nations, Scott Straus seeks to explain why and how genocide takes place—and, perhaps more important, how it has been avoided in places where it may have seemed likely or even inevitable. To solve that puzzle, he examines postcolonial Africa, analyzing countries in which genocide occurred and where it could have but did not. Why have there not been other Rwandas? Straus finds that deep-rooted ideologies—how leaders make their nations—shape strategies of violence and are central to what leads to or away from genocide. Other critical factors include the dynamics of war, the role of restraint, and the interaction between national and local actors in the staging of campaigns of large-scale violence. Grounded in Straus's extensive fieldwork in contemporary Africa, the study of major twentieth-century cases of genocide, and the literature on genocide and political violence, Making and Unmaking Nations centers on cogent analyses of three nongenocide cases (Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, and Senegal) and two in which genocide took place (Rwanda and Sudan). Straus's empirical analysis is based in part on an original database of presidential speeches from 1960 to 2005. The book also includes a broad-gauge analysis of all major cases of large-scale violence in Africa since decolonization. Straus's insights into the causes of genocide will inform the study of political violence as well as giving policymakers and nongovernmental organizations valuable tools for the future.