When asked in 2016 if he would step down as President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir replied 'my exit could spark genocide.' Kiir's words exemplify how fear and the threat of mass violence have become central to the politics of South Sudan. As South Sudanese analyst Daniel Akech Thiong shows, it is this politics that lies at the heart of the country's seemingly intractable civil war. In this book, Akech Thiong explores the origins of South Sudan's politics of fear. Weaving together social, economic and cultural factors into a comprehensive framework, he reveal how the country's elites have exploited ethnic divisions as a means of mobilising support and securing their grip on power, in the process triggering violent conflict. He also considers the ways in which this politics of fear takes root among the wider populace, exploring the role of corruption, social media, and state coercion in spreading hatred and fostering mass violence. As regimes across Africa and around the world become increasingly reliant on their own politics of fear, Akech Thiong's book offers novel insight into a growing phenomenon with implications far beyond South Sudan.

The Routledge Handbook of the Horn of Africa provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary survey of contemporary research related to the Horn of Africa. Situated at the junction of the Sahel-Saharan strip and the Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of Africa is growing in global importance due to demographic growth and the strategic importance of the Suez Canal. Divided into sections on authoritarianism and resistance, religion and politics, migration, economic integration, the military, and regimes and liberation, the contributors provide up-to-date, authoritative knowledge on the region in light of contemporary strategic concerns. The handbook investigates how political, economic, and security innovations have been implemented, sometimes with violence, by use of force or by negotiation – including ‘ethnic federalism’ in Ethiopia, independence in Eritrea and South Sudan, integration of the traditional authorities in the (neo)patrimonial administrations, Somalian Islamic Courts, the Sudanese Islamist regime, people’s movements, multilateral operations, and the construction of an architecture for regional peace and security. Accessibly written, this handbook is an essential read for scholars, students, and policy professionals interested in the contemporary politics in the Horn of Africa.

Just eight years after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and two years after gaining independence, the world's newest nation state descended once more into violence and civil war. Why have policies of liberal peacebuilding failed to bring lasting stability to the region? And what now for South Sudan? Nyambura Wambugu, an academic with more than ten years' practical advisory and policymaking experience, adopts a holistic and multi-thematic approach to answer these crucial questions. Rooting her analysis as deeply as the initial militarisation of Sudan in the 1950s, Wambugu considers the complex and overlapping issues that have afflicted the region since 2005. In the process, Wambugu demonstrates the failure of the billions of dollars spent on liberal peacebuilding and elucidates the possibility of demilitarisation as a lasting and sustainable alternative. Such issues are common in post-conflict states, and the book therefore acts as a case study for better understanding the deeply entrenched causes of instability and identifying the most sustainable paths to peace. This meticulously researched account is essential reading for all students, researchers and policymakers working on post-conflict societies.

Explores various aspects of chiefly authority in South Sudan from its historical origins and evolution under colonial, postcolonial and military rule, to its current roles and value in the newly independent country. South Sudan became Africa's newest nation in 2011, following decades of armed conflict. Chiefs - or 'traditional authorities' - became a particular focus of attention during the international relief effort and post-war reconstruction and state-building. But 'traditional' authority in South Sudan has been much misunderstood. Institutions of chiefship were created during the colonial period but originated out of a much longer process of dealing with predatory external forces. This book addresses a significant paradox in African studies more widely: if chiefs were the product of colonial states, why have they survived or revived in recent decades? By examining the long-term history ofchiefship in the vicinity of three towns, the book also argues for a new approach to the history of towns in South Sudan. Towns have previously been analysed as the loci of alien state power, yet the book demonstrates that thesegovernment centres formed an expanding urban frontier, on which people actively sought knowledge and resources of the state. Chiefs mediated relations on and across this frontier, and in the process chiefship became central to constituting both the state and local communities. Cherry Leonardi is Senior Lecturer in African History at Durham University, a former course director of the Rift Valley Institute's Sudan course, and a member of the council of the British Institute in Eastern Africa Published in association with the British Institute in Eastern Africa.

The overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 in Iraq opened the door for Kurdish nationalists to move toward outright independence. Despite the recent visibility of the Kurds in the international media, little is known about their political aspirations as citizens of an autonomous region. In Secession and Conflict Zheger Hassan employs a comparative analysis to explore why Iraqi Kurdistan, despite being better positioned institutionally and economically than the similar cases of South Sudan and Kosovo, has not declared independence. In rebuilding Iraq and fighting against the Islamic State, the Kurds have cultivated important political alliances with the US and Europe, which have garnered them international economic, military, and political support. Though now well-positioned to function as an independent state, Iraqi Kurdistan has vacillated in seizing this golden opportunity to declare independence. The apparent Kurdish willingness to forgo independence runs counter to the prevailing narratives about the Kurds in the Middle East. Hassan draws not only on the history of the Kurds but also on first-hand interviews with high-ranking officials, journalists, and nationalists to provide a new window into the calculations of Kurdish leaders as they navigate the complicated politics of Iraq. Secession and Conflict offers a new model for understanding the Kurdish question in Iraq.

About the Book In depth, comprehensive, and extensively researched, South Sudan’s Endless Sorrows chronicles the complex history of South Sudan and its long, bitter struggle for freedom. South Sudan’s long battle with colonization and invasion of foreign powers began as early as the twelfth century and has continued up until the twentieth century, when the struggle for liberation came to a long period of bloody civil unrest and war. To this day, South Sudan still struggles to find its own identity, voice, and freedom. With a devout love of his homeland and the people he holds dear, Gatluak’s history of South Sudan doubles as a heart-wrenching plea for intervention, compromise, and peace in the country that has been ransacked by violence for centuries. About the Author Lul Gatkuoth Gatluak is a South Sudanese American born in the Puldeng village near Bilpam, at the border of South Sudan and Ethiopia. Lul has always had a drive and passion for education; after moving to the United States, he received his high school diploma, his associate’s degree in Liberal Arts from Minneapolis Community and Technical College, a bachelor of arts in Criminal Justice from Metropolitan State University with a minor in English, and a bachelors of science in Communication Studies at Minnesota State University-Mankato with a minor in Sociology. Lul also hold a master’s degree in Public Administration at Hamline University. Besides this book, Lul has also written several articles.

The idea for this book can be traced to an informal brainstorming session among four very good friends -- Ali Mazrui, Victor Olorunsola, Donald Rothchild and Dunstan Wai. In a real sense, then, as editors we owe a lot to Dunstan and Ali for their intellectual stimulation and for encouraging us to pursue a follow-up to ~.f.2l.i::. ,lla .Qt Cultyral ~Natignalism .in A..f'.da

Published in 1973: This thoroughgoing collection of informed and incisive essay brings together for the first time between the covers of a single volume a very wide spectrum of views on one of the key conflicts in Africa today. The problems underlying the whole situation are discussed from extremely diverse standpoints, so that the mass of data is constantly reinterpreted by the several authors, casting differing lights upon this complex tragedy.

This new and revised edition of 'A Concise History of South Sudan' was revised by Avelino Androga Said, Yosa Wawa, Anne Farren and Anders Breidlid. All chapters were revised and a new chapter on the period from the referendum in 2011 to the period after independence has been added. When the first edition was published in 2010 it was the first history book of its kind in the now South Sudan. This first edition was primarily intended for secondary schools in South Sudan, but the book proved to arouse great interest to many other South Sudanese both inside South Sudan as well as in the diaspora. This was not surprising since it was the first history book on South Sudan to cover, albeit not in detail, the whole history from the origin of mankind to the present. The book may be of interest to students, academicians, politicians and civil society groups such as churches and youth and women's groups. The first, original edition of this book was produced as a result of extensive team work, and the majority of the contributors are South Sudanese citizens, either living in South Sudan or in the diaspora.