Fifteen years after independence, South Sudan’s peace process is increasingly being scrutinized for entrenching elite control rather than delivering lasting stability. New research argues that successive peace agreements have redistributed political offices and access to state revenues among elites without dismantling the coercive systems that enabled conflict in the first place. The analysis argues that peace deals have formalized wartime extraction—taxes, checkpoints, oil revenue, and non-monetary levies—into recognized state authority rather than reforming it, a pattern the researcher terms “predatory peace.” This arrangement benefits political and military elites, while ordinary South Sudanese bear the costs through extraction without service. Researchers say sustainable peace will require transparent revenue management, stronger civilian oversight, and reforms that link taxation to improved public services instead of elite patronage.
The Conversation