South Sudan: institutional legacy of colonialism and the making of a new state

Abstract

The paper argues that the post-colonial crisis of citizenship demands a rethinking of the paradigm of viewing colonialism simply as a system of economic exploitation to viewing colonialism as a political project that is anchored in law. The paper provides a historical and post-referendum analysis of the political division between North and South Sudan. As South Sudan seeks to build a state that accommodates diversity, it faces the same question faced in many African countries, namely how to build a nation that embraces diversity within the country and transcends the urban–rural divide and the ethnic divisions that threaten to undermine the process of nation-building. In Africa, the law has emerged as the tool that distinguishes and divides between those regarded as natives and thus entitled to political rights and access to resources and those considered non-native for whom political rights and access to resources are withheld. The paper discusses the challenges that South Sudan...