South Sudan and the Four Dimensions of Power-Sharing: Political, Territorial, Military, and Economic

Abstract

abstract:Caroline Hartzell and Matthew Hoddie’s theoretical model of power-sharing’s four dimensions—political, territorial, military, and economic—is used here to analyze successive peace processes in South Sudan. This multifaceted power-sharing strategy was utilized within both the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), designed to resolve Sudan’s intractable North-South conflict, as well as the 2015 Agreement on the Resolution of the Crisis in South Sudan (ARCISS) that addressed a continuation of intra-South violence. This study investigates the breakdown between the expected outcome of this power-sharing model and its implementation. Despite the international community’s stated objective of building a post-conflict order in which these four levers of state power are guided by liberal democratic principles, South Sudan’s peace processes have descended into an elite bargain over how the spoils of patronage are dispersed. This divergence is explained by the interference of strategic interests at the national, regional, and global levels.