Abstract:
Peace-building has reached a cross-roads. The high instance of conflict relapse in “post-conflict” societies
has stimulated an examination of dominant peace-building thinking and practice. This research contributes to
this thinking by examining nation-building in societies plagued by identity-related conflicts, specifically in
South Sudan. It does so using the leadership process approach. The question driving this enquiry is to discover
whether the leadership process approach can shed light on why South Sudan failed to build a nation
that sustains peace. By using the leadership process approach, this study contributes to a better understanding
of nation-building and how it contributes to both conflict and peace processes, allowing for a greater understanding
of the relationship between nation-building and peace-building and why dominant state-building
approaches to peace-building are incomplete.
Using existing literature, the thesis provides a cohesive conceptual framework of the nation combining five
elements: a national identity, link to a territory, a claim to political organisation and self-government, collective
will and collective responsibility. This provides the key themes and indicators which are examined using
the leadership process approach. The leadership process approach, which conceptualises leadership as a relationship
between leaders, followers and situations, provides the analytical tools that are used to explain the
emergence of the five elements of the conceptual framework of the nation. These tools include an examination
of the leader-follower relationship based on mutuality and the exchange of influence, situational leadership
and the sources of power. This framework is used to understand South Sudan. A case study approach is
used to ensure a full examination of the relationship between nation-building and peace-building using the
leadership process. Multiple forms of data collection were used including documentary analysis, a literature
review and interviews. This data is analysed using the process tracing approach.
The analysis includes South Sudan’s early history through to the signing of the most recent peace agreement
in 2015. South Sudan’s early history of conquest and colonisation, the first Sudanese civil war, the second
Sudanese civil war and the current South Sudanese civil war are all explored in depth. The study finds that
the leadership process approach allows for a more nuanced and holistic understanding of the South Sudanese
conflict specifically and nation-building in general. It shows that peace-building failed in South Sudan because
of the conflict-reinforcing nature of the nation-building and leadership processes that have been replicated
at national, regional and local levels. It concludes with several lessons learned for both nation-building
and peace-building.
