Rejoice Matthew2026-06-232026-06-232026-05-08https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12311/3380UndergraduateAs the youngest country in the world, South Sudan has continued to experience political unrest since its independence in 2011, although it has some significant oil reserves in the Upper Nile State, especially in the Paloch and Melut Basin areas. This study will deal with the link between petroleum resource governance and political stability in South Sudan, with the main case study being Paloch in Upper Nile State and a time span of 2011 to 2025. The study sought to examine the role of oil resources in shaping political stability of South Sudan with focus on Paloch, analyse the impact of oil exploration and production activities on local communities in Paloch (economic and socio-political implications) and to examine the relationship between oil related conflicts and political instability in Upper Nile State. A qualitative research design was used, with only secondary sources used such as peer reviewed academic research, institutional and policy reports from the UNMISS, NRGI, Global Witness and the International Crisis group as well as credible media reports. Purposive sampling was used to identify sources that are directly relevant, of analytical quality, and appropriate temporal and geographic scope. The theoretical framework is a combination of Resource Curse Theory, Rentier State Theory, Social Constructivism, Instrumentalist Theory of Ethnicity, the Security Dilemma framework and Liberal Peacebuilding Theory. They are seen analytically as complementary and are used in combination to provide a multi-level explanation of oil-induced instability which covers elite action, community grievances, identity mobilization and government failure. The results show that in Paloch, oil has not driven development, but rather it has been a structural driver of conflict, elite predation and governance fragmentation. The oil benefits of the Melut Basin have been diverted from the State of the Upper Nile to the State of Juba, which has resulted in fiscal centralization, thereby fostering grievance structures within the Collo (Shilluk) communities, the Dinka Padang and the Nuer communities. Oil extraction has been a dispossession to communities in Paloch, and the impacts of this activity have been felt in the following ways: dispossession of ancestral lands, disruption of riverine livelihoods, environmental contamination, and exclusion from participative governance. Civil war in 5 Oil Resources and Political Stability in South Sudan December 2013 highlighted these dynamics dramatically, as control of Paloch oil infrastructure was an early target for armed groups. Previous peace agreements (ARCSS (2015) and R-ARCSS (2018) have failed to achieve sustainable peace due to the fact that they failed to tackle the issue of elite power-sharing but did not address the problem of sub-national contestation regarding the distribution of oil revenue and community benefits. The study argues that instability in Paloch is a systematic result of a political economy designed to focus the benefits of oil revenues in the hands of national and sub-national elites and exclude producing communities. It suggests the creation of a sub-national oil revenue governance mechanism for Upper Nile State, building the transparency of oil revenue into peace agreement implementation benchmarks, addressing community land rights in the Melut Basin, reform of the Petroleum Revenue Stabilization Fund, and development of livelihood programmes for communities affected by oil that are conflict sensitive.enDissertation