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South Sudan: The Bumpy Road to Democratic Transition
Luka Biong Deng Kuol
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DOI:10.17265/2328-2134/2025.05.005
The Sudd Institute, Juba, South Sudan
University of Juba, Juba, South Sudan
National Defense University, Washington, USA
The trajectory of democratic transition in Africa has been marred by optimism in the post-cold war period, but it has taken a new turn in recent years with surge in autocracies and a remarkable resurgence of abrupt unconstitutional seizures of power in recent years in sub-Saharan Africa. This is well manifested in the Horn of Africa, as the process of democratic transition has largely retrogressed and stalled at the best, particularly in the case of South Sudan. Despite this bumpy road to democratic transition, there is a dearth of understanding of the drivers stalling democratic transition in South Sudan. This necessitates a better analysis of these drivers and to put South Sudan on a sustainable path toward democratic transition. This paper is an attempt to provide evidence-driven understanding of democratic transitions in South Sudan. The paper adopts a multidisciplinary framework of various theoretical approaches for analyzing the democratic transition in South Sudan. Based on hybrid research methods and a thorough analysis that is grounded on the political economy approach, the paper shows that the path toward democratic transitions in South Sudan has been constrained by a web of intertwined political, economic, and security challenges that inhibit the conduct of the first general elections in the youngest country of South Sudan. Some of these challenges include the fallacy of power-sharing peace agreement, kleptocratic economic governance, and politicized and ethnicitized security sector. As a microcosm of the Horn of Africa, the case study of South Sudan provides some implications and practical recommendations for governing better the democratic transitions in the region. Some of these recommendations include adoption of a realistic and regionally-centered mediation strategy, considering other options beyond power-sharing formula for managing the post-conflict political transitions, considering more credible sunset clause besides the conduct of elections for ending the political transitions, and more involvement of civil society in all phases of peace agreements, particularly the monitoring and oversight mechanisms.
democracy, transition, elections, autocracy, political economy, South Sudan, Horn of Africa
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