South Sudan's Fateful Struggle: Building Peace in a State of War

In South Sudan's Fateful Struggle, Steven C. Roach analyzes these persistent effects of the South-South war, showing how they disrupted the transition to statehood and divided the transitional government of national unity in South Sudan. Throughout, he stresses the centrality of elite mismanagement and the durable dynamics of war which have shaped the country's troubled political destiny. The government, plagued by patronage-fueled corruption and patrimonialism, remains a critical source of instability, having largely undermined expectations for accountability, democratic governance, transparency in the economic sector, and human rights. Along with providing an overview of the country's trajectory in this century, Roach traces its state of war to colonial times and uses the notion of militarized patronage to describe the distinct nature of South Sudan's patronage networks. He shows how the Sudan People's Liberation Movement has dominated control of the country's political destiny and
become a powerful deterrent to democracy, security, justice, and national unity.

Comprehensive in scope, the book represents the first systematic examination of the foundations of South Sudan's quandary both before and after its civil war. Yet it also offers hope for a moral reckoning through the promising efforts to advance hybrid justice and to pressure the government to implement a truth commission, war crimes court, and reparations commission.