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Book chapter
Taxation, Stateness and Armed Groups: Public Authority and Resource Extraction in Eastern Congo
This contribution analyses the role of taxation in the constitution of authority in the conflict-ridden eastern DRC, where numerous authorities alternately compete and collude over the right to extract resources. Taxation ranges from simple plunder, to protection rackets, to material…
Research paper
‘Living between Two Lions’: Civilian Protection Strategies during Armed Violence in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo
This article examines how civilians assess, negotiate with, and in some cases deceive armed actors in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It demonstrates that civilians not only navigate the precarious and unpredictable conditions within armed conflict, but…
Research paper
Dirty Things: Spiritual Pollution and Life after the Lord’s Resistance Army
Drawing on insights gleaned from ethnographic fieldwork over the last decade, we focus here on targeted research from January to August 2014 with former LRA individuals who were part of a bigger study of clients at an ex-combatant reception centre.…
Research paper
South Sudan’s Civil War Will Not End with a Peace Deal
In early 2017, the government of South Sudan declared that parts of the country had been hit by severe famine. This famine was another sign of the many ways in which a disastrous war was killing people. South Sudan had…
Research paper
Fettered Self-determination: South Sudan’s Narrowed Path to Secession
The interpretation of self-determination as a vote for secession shaped the state that South Sudan has become since the 2011 referendum. Self-determination, this paper argues, is a democratic political process in which citizens determine their preferred form of statehood and…
Research paper
The Transitional Justice Gap: Exploring ‘Everyday’ Gendered Harms and Customary Justice in South Kivu, DR Congo
Feminist transitional justice (TJ) has greatly contributed to the study of justice in the ruins of war, notably around prosecuting wartime rape. At the same time, scholars have observed limitations to this research agenda such as externally-driven definitions gendered harms…
Research paper
Transitional Justice and Political Economies of Survival in Post-conflict Northern Uganda
This article explores the interplay between transitional justice and ‘everyday’ political economies of survival in post-conflict Acholiland, northern Uganda. It advances two main arguments. First, that transitional justice — as part and parcel of conventional liberal peacebuilding packages — promotes…
Research paper
‘That thing of human rights’: discourse, emergency assistance, and sexual violence in South Sudan’s current civil war
One of the most widely covered aspects of the current conflict in South Sudan has been the use sexual violence by rival factions of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and other armed groups. While this has had the positive…
Research paper
Contesting the militarization of the places where they met: the landscapes of the western Nuer and Dinka (South Sudan)
Decades of violent conflict and elite wealth acquisition have created a common rupture in shared landscapes between communities of the western Dinka and Nuer (South Sudan). Since the government wars of the 1980s, people from both Dinka and Nuer communities…
Research paper
Charcoal power: The political violence of non-fossil fuel in Uganda
Charcoal is important in Africa due to its centrality to urbanization. Despite this, the politics of charcoal remain largely unexplored. This article asks how political power shapes charcoal production and how charcoal as an energy source shapes political power through…
Research paper
Peace and the security sector in Sudan, 2002–11
This paper examines how contests over military control were played out during peace negotiations and in the implementation of agreements (including the manipulation or violation of the terms of agreements) in Sudan between 2002 and 2011.
Research paper
The humanitarian protectorate of South Sudan? Understanding insecurity for humanitarians in a political economy of aid
This paper contributes to debates about humanitarian governance and insecurity in post-conflict situations. Taking the case of South Sudan, it explores relations between humanitarian agencies, the international community, and local authorities, and how international and local forms of power become…
Report
Sudanese refugees in Chad: Passing the baton to no one
This Refugees International report describes the conditions faced by Sudanese refugees in Chad in recent history.
Background report
Contesting Authority: Armed rebellion and military fragmentation in Walikale and Kalehe, North and South Kivu
Eastern DRC continues to be plagued by violence and dozens of armed groups. Yet, these groups—and how they interact with their social and political environment—remain poorly understood. This report analyses their involvement in public life in the territories of Kalehe…
Background report
Livelihoods and Conflict in South Sudan
The SLRC South Sudan programme has been working since 2012 to identify and understand the realities of livelihoods, access to basic services, and perceptions of governance in post-independence South Sudan. This briefing paper summarises findings from the publications of SLRC…
Background report
Complexities of Service Delivery and State-Building
The SLRC South Sudan programme has been working since 2012 to identify and understand the realities of livelihoods, access to basic services, and perceptions of governance in post-independence South Sudan. This briefing paper summarises findings from the publications of SLRC…
Background report
Trajectories of International Engagement with State and Local Actors: Evidence from South Sudan
The paper traces shifts in international engagement and the implications of these shifts for understanding the trends in service provision specifically, and recovery and development more generally, in South Sudan. This analysis is intended to offer some direction for the…
Briefing
Expanding the Reach of Justice and Accountability in South Sudan
This policy brief explores options to consider in expanding the reach of justice and accountability processes as part of any post-conflict transition in South Sudan. The brief is structured in three sections. After a short introduction, the first section examines…
Briefing
Women, Conflict and Public Authority in the Congo
Even though women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are undoubtedly marginalized in formal political life, they are not completely absent from the political arena. Congolese women are involved in the exercise of local public authority in a…
Briefing
‘It’s not all about the land’: Land disputes and conflict in the eastern Congo
This briefing makes several key points: Current interventions in land conflicts are focused on conflict management rather than conflict resolution. Land conflicts are part of a wider governance problem and need political rather than technical approaches. Conflicts over land are…
Thesis
He who touches the weapon becomes other: a study of participation in armed groups in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo
This dissertation is a study of the dynamics of armed mobilization and participation in non-state armed organizations in the province of South Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It asks one of the fundamental questions of the study of…
Briefing
Implementing DDR in settings of ongoing conflict: the organization and fragmentation of armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
This Practice Note draws lessons from the multi-party context of the DRC and from the experiences of former members of three armed groups.
Research paper
Reintegrating former fighters in the Congo: ambitious objectives, limited results
Current scholarly works in International Relations grew increasingly preoccupied over the effectiveness and programmatic failure of international assistance, especially with regard to issues pertaining to the ‘security–development’ nexus and the post-9/11 ‘securitization’ agenda. Complex Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) programmes…
Research paper
Multi-layered Security Governance as a Quick Fix? The challenges of donor-supported, bottom-up security provision in Ituri (DR Congo)
This paper investigates ‘multi-layered’ security governance arrangements developed in the restive Ituri province in north-eastern DR Congo, where different forms of insecurity affect people’s lives on a daily basis. It looks more specifically into ‘multilayered’ security governance in Ituri’s capital…
Research paper
The counterinsurgency/conservation nexus: guerrilla livelihoods and the dynamics of conflict and violence in the Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo
The growing militarisation of nature conservation has refocused attention on the relations between counterinsurgency and conservation. This contribution analyses how these two phenomena entwine in the Virunga National Park, located in the war-ridden east of the Democratic Republic of the…
Multimedia
South Sudan: The price of war, the price of peace – a graphic story
In December 2013, South Sudan erupted into civil war as President Salva Kiir’s army battled rebel forces led by former Vice-President Riek Machar. Tens of thousands were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. This cartoon tells the story of the…
Research paper
Introduction: Making Sense of South Sudan
This introductory essay to a selection of African Affairs articles on South Sudan documents the critical contributions of empirically rich and analytically rigorous research, highly relevant to understanding South Sudan’s crisis, led by South Sudanese scholars. This contrasts with journalism…
Research paper
Darfur refugees in Egypt: Suffering out of the spotlight
This paper describes the conditions faced by Sudanese refugees in Egypt in recent history.
Background report
Ebola in the Context of Conflict Affected States and Health Systems: Case Studies of Northern Uganda and Sierra Leone
Ebola seems to be a particular risk in conflict affected contexts. All three of the countries most affected by the 2014-15 outbreak have a complex conflict-affected recent history. Other major outbreaks in the recent past, inNorthern Uganda and in the…
Research paper
Armed mobilisation and the nexus of territory, identity, and authority: the contested territorial aspirations of the Banyamulenge in eastern DR Congo
The closely intertwined notions of territory, identity, and authority are at the heart of conflict dynamics in the eastern DR Congo. Focusing on the territorial aspirations of the Banyamulenge community in South Kivu, this article looks at the ways in…
Briefing
Understanding Armed Group Proliferation in the Eastern Congo
Due to the proliferation of smaller armed groups and the disappearance and scattering of larger rebel movements, the armed group landscape of the eastern Congo has become increasingly fragmented. This fragmentation results from the interplay between the growing engagement of…
Book chapter
Urbanisation and the Political Geographies of Violent Struggle for Power and Control: Mining Boomtowns in Eastern Congo
This chapter addresses rural–urban transformations in the Kivu provinces, DRC, and more particularly focuses on the complex relationship between dynamics of violent conflict and the emergence of urban mining ‘boomtowns’. Mining towns offer fascinating sites from which to investigate the…
Research paper
Vigilantes, Witches and Vampires: How Moral Populism Shapes Social Accountability in Northern Uganda
Strange murders have occurred in northern Uganda. Blood is said to have been removed from the victims, and there are tales about child sacrifice and terrifying witchcraft. An ‘election’ was organised to select the culprit, known as ‘Mr Red’, and…
Research paper
‘And Then He Switched off the Phone’: Mobile Phones, Participation and Political Accountability in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria State
This paper uses qualitative and quantitative original data to investigate the impact of mobile phones in situations of political contestation or conflict. We derive hypotheses from theories in general political science, and on the role of mobile phones specifically. These…
Briefing
Beyond Anarchy: Property, Precarity and Land Governance in Urban Congo
In the brief, we argue that these references to “anarchy” and “disorder” should not to be taken at face value. Instead, they are produced through daily practices of land governance.
Research paper
‘And Then He Switched off the Phone’: Mobile Phones, Participation and Political Accountability in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria State
This paper investigates the impact of mobile phones in situations of political contestation or conflict. According to theory, mobile phones could play a positive role in building a more accountable government, and with that, contribute to statebuilding. We examine to…
