South Sudan Findings
Key findings from PeaceRep’s research in South Sudan
PeaceRep research in South Sudan focuses on the ongoing peace and transition process, the planned elections, patterns of governance and state and armed group financing, and the regional role of South Sudan in mediation processes in neighbouring countries. Browse our key findings below, or download them as a PDF.
Read more about our South Sudan research focus and teams.
Explore data and research from the South Sudan Public Perceptions of Peace survey.
Perceptions of Peace
Data from the South Sudan Public Perceptions of Peace survey, conducted five times from 2021 to 2025, reveals that the perceived everyday security – measured by surveying Everyday Peace Indicators – is the strongest independent variable explaining public trust in the government and the on-going peace process (Deng et al., 2022).
In general, the survey reveals a highly diverse political picture that varies significantly from county to county (see the interactive survey results). Conflict patterns remain highly localised (Muorwel and Pospisil, 2024; Muorwel et al., 2023; Wilson, 2024), with cultural practices – such as extremely high brideprices (Johnston et al., 2024) – sometimes triggering incidents that spiral out of control.
From 2018-2024 South Sudanese, on average, have experienced a steady improvement in their perceptions of everyday safety (Dawkins et al., 2023a). However, these findings overlay diverse experiences across locations, underlining persistent insecurity in the Equatorias and Pibor, with incremental improvements elsewhere in South Sudan.
The findings suggest that investments in everyday security are likely to have positive effects for public buy-in to the peace process (Pospisil, 2024a).
Elections
Polling data reveals a strong preference for holding elections as currently planned, in December 2024 (Pospisil et al., 2024). The primary concern is the risk of election violence, with 61 percent of respondents in 2023 viewing this as likely or highly likely to happen. The ruling party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), remains the preferred political party nationally, with about half of the respondents naming it as the party with the best political vision for the country. The main opposition party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO), shows strength in specific regions, especially in Unity State (Pospisil, 2024b, pp. 18-32).
It remains an open question whether elections will offer a credible and fair way out of the transition process. However, as PeaceRep research on ‘formalised political unsettlement’ (Bell and Pospisil, 2017) has shown, it is unlikely that prolonging the transitional period will improve the conditions for elections in the foreseeable future. For international stakeholders, the decision to be made is, therefore, one between risking possibly disruptive change that can lead to an increase of armed violence, or prolonging the transition process indefinitely, likely without achieving any tangible political gains (Pospisil, 2023).
Political Marketplace
The current modality of government highlights the issues of structured corruption in a political marketplace shaped by a power-sharing agreement. Political competition is substituted by armed contestation, motivated by gaining rewards for re-entering the ruling party (Benson, 2023).
Despite decades of internationally supported peace processes, predatory and coercive revenue raising patterns continue to fuel conflict and sustain the country’s violent political marketplace. Peace processes need to more meaningfully grapple with highly internationalised and often illicit patterns of war financing in conflict-affected countries like South Sudan (Benson, 2024).
Armed groups’ revenue raising considerations are an often neglected aspect of peace processes. Forthcoming research calls for revitalised approaches to peace processes, as existing internationally supported peace processes tend to privilege legislative reforms, which in South Sudan have failed to constrain extortionate patterns of predation that drive the country’s wars (Benson, forthcoming).
A revised thinking on the nature of state and armed group finance within in-country civic groups and international support to peace processes to overcome state fragmentation is required (Benson, 2024). Civic groups likely have often-overlooked agency to moderately constrain rulers’ oil-financed predatory politics that may be readily adapted to other types of non-oil natural resources (Benson, 2022).
Mediation
Faced with dwindling international support, politically as well as financially, the transitional government attempts to utilise its mediation efforts in neighbouring countries to attract recognition and new funds, at least at the regional level. Hosting the Sudanese peace talks, which resulted in the, finally failed, Juba Peace Agreement, were a particular success in that regard. The current attempt to remain the host for the Sudan negotiations is, however, hampered by increasing political instability and a severe economic crisis (Madut Anei, 2023).
International mediation efforts in South Sudan are also fragmented (Logo and Mariani, 2022) and strongly regionalised (Peter and Houghton, 2023). The 2024 Tumaini peace initiative being held in Nairobi for the holdout groups is yet another example of this (Magara and Pospisil, 2024).
References
*When referencing these key findings, please cite the individual research paper or blog referenced in the text.*
Perceptions of Peace in South Sudan Dashboard
Bell, C., & Pospisil, J. (2017). Navigating Inclusion in Transitions from Conflict: The Formalised Political Unsettlement. Journal of International Development, 29, 576–593.
Benson, M. (2022). Taxation and Civiness in South Sudan: Revenue Reforms for a More Inclusive Democracy (Policy Brief). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.
Benson, M. (2023, Jan 23). Review – When Peace Kills Politics: International Intervention in the Sudans (blog). https://peacerep.org/2023/01/23/review-when-peace-kills-politics/
Benson, M. (2024). Of Rule not Revenue: South Sudan’s Revenue Complex from Colonial, Rebel, to Independent Rule, 1899 to 2023. Comparative Studies in Society and History.
Dawkins, S., Oringa, C., Deng, D., and Pospisil, J. (2023). Perceptions of Peace in South Sudan: Patterns in Perceptions of Safety since the 2018 R-ARCSS (Detcro and PeaceRep Report). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.
Deng, D., Dawkins, S., Oringa, C. and Pospisil, J. (2022). National Survey on Perceptions of Peace in South Sudan (Detcro and PeaceRep Report). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.
Kunhiak Muorwel, J., Pospisil, J., and Igale Monoja, V. (2023). Caught between Crises in South Sudan: Flood-Induced Migration of Dinka Bor Cattle Herders into the Equatoria Region (PeaceRep and FES Discussion Paper). Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, South Sudan Office.
Kunhiak Muorwel, J. and Pospisil, J. (2024). Peace in Transition: The Case of South Sudan (PeaceRep and FES Research Briefing). Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, South Sudan Office.
Logo, K. H. & Mariani, B. (2022). Fragmentation of Peacemaking in South Sudan: Reality and Perception (PeaceRep Report: Global Transitions Series). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.
Madut Anei, C. (2023, 3 Jul). South Sudanese Perspectives on Sudan’s War: Risks for South Sudan (blog). https://peacerep.org/2023/07/03/south-sudanese-perspectives-humanitarian-economic-conflict-risks/
Magara, I. & Pospisil, J. (2024, 27 May). Overloaded? Hope and Scepticism around the Tumaini Peace Initiative for South Sudan (African Arguments blog). https://peacerep.org/2024/06/04/overloaded-hope-and-scepticism-around-the-tumaini-peace-initiative-for-south-sudan/
Peter, M., and Houghton, K. (2023). Congestion and Diversification of Third-Party Mediation in Sudan and South Sudan: Longer-Term Trends (Global Transitions Report). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform.
Pospisil, J. (2023, 26 Jun). Elections on the Horizon? South Sudan prepares for end of the transition phase (blog). https://peacerep.org/2023/06/26/south-sudan-elections-2024/
Pospisil, J. (2024). Voting out of Transition? Perspectives on the Planned National Elections in South Sudan. Sudan Studies for South Sudan and Sudan.
Pospisil, J. (2024). Perceiving Peace in a Fragment State: The Case of South Sudan (PeaceRep and FES Research Briefing). Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, South Sudan Office.
Pospisil, J., Johnston, M., Alaak Garang, A., and Rambang Tai, N. (2024). Bring Enough Cows to Marry: Brideprice, Conflict, and Gender Relations in South Sudan (PeaceRep Report). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.
Wilson, R. (2024, 5 Mar). Assets as Armies in South Sudan: Local Peace Mediation in the Path of Elites’ Cattle (blog). https://peacerep.org/2024/03/05/assets-as-armies/