Browsing by Author "Simon Arike"

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    Ethnic politics and the persistence of armed conflict
    (Uganda Christian University, 2026-05-11) Simon Arike
    This research explores the role ethnic politics has played in sustaining armed conflict in South Sudan from 2013-2025, focusing at the sub-national level on Jonglei State. Notwithstanding multiple peace agreements, most significantly the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (ARCSS, 2015) and the Revitalized ARCSS (R-ARCSS, 2018), armed conflict has persisted in Jonglei with the United Nations estimating 280,000 internally displaced persons in the state as of early 2026. This research finds that the ongoing violence is not a failure of diplomacy or the result of "primordial" ethnic hatreds between the Dinka, Nuer and Murle peoples, but rather a systematic consequence of ethnic politics: the strategic mobilisation of ethnic identity by national, regional and local political elites to gain and consolidate power, hinder implementation of peace agreements and sustain the formation of armed groups. Using a constructivist-instrumentalist approach, complemented by the ethnic security dilemma and critical liberal peacebuilding, the study undertakes a qualitative secondary analysis of peer-reviewed literature, institutional and policy documents. The analysis is organised around three research objectives: to analyse the political mobilisation of ethnic identity in Jonglei; to analyse the effects of ethnic politics on armed group formation; and to analyse the effects of ethnic politics on the implementation of peace agreements and national reconciliation. The research findings show that ethnic identities in Jonglei are socially constructed and instrumentalised, rather than primordial; that armed groups are politically structured formations, enabled by ethnic recruitment, patronage and the social reproduction of masculinities, and sustained by the absence of institutions; and that peace agreement failures are largely explained by elite-controlled fragmentation - the deliberate maintenance of ethnic division and institutional weakness by ruling elites who profit from conflict. The study points to five key gaps in the literature, including the failure to consider sub-national processes in Jonglei; the under-representation of the Murle community in scholarly and policy debate; and the under-theorisation of community-level dynamics of peace agreement failure. The study offers key recommendations for peace practitioners, the Government of South Sudan, and researchers, which include refocusing peace architecture on sub-national conflict transformation, reforming Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) policy to account for cultural dynamics of armed group membership, operationalising transitional justice mechanisms, and investing in long-term community-led reconciliation processes, such as the 1999 Wunlit Conference.Keywords: Ethnic politics, armed conflict, Jonglei State, South Sudan, constructivism, instrumentalism, security dilemma, peace agreements, R-ARCSS, ethnic mobilisation, Dinka, Nuer, Murle.