The Place of Conflict Entrepreneurs in Protracted Peace Processes: A Case of South Sudan

In an attempt to understand South Sudan’s difficult journey towards its peaceful end, this thesis explores the political economy angle of the conflict and focuses on how the economic interests of a wide range of actors played and continue to play a role in frustrating the peace process. This approach helps in highlighting the underlying motivations and incentives that drive these ‘conflict entrepreneurs’ and the mechanisms that they employ to ‘spoil’ the prospects for peace. The objectives of this thesis are: (i) to explore the main drivers and agents (‘conflict entrepreneurs’) in South Sudan’s conflict context, (ii) To investigate how the economic motivations of these conflict entrepreneurs played a role in frustrating the peace process in South Sudan. Primary data for this thesis was obtained through interviewing experts and other experienced persons representing various organizations that were directly or indirectly involved in the peace process in South Sudan. Secondary data was retrieved from books, institutional publications, journals, sessional papers, and newspaper articles. The findings of this study will contribute to the body of knowledge regarding post-conflict peace processes and particularly on how to manage the spoiling behavior of conflict entrepreneurs in the always complex process.