African Peace and Conflict Studies (Broader - Interdisciplinary)
African Peace and Conflict Studies (Broader - Interdisciplinary) is a peer‑reviewed scholarly journal published under the Pan‑African Research Journals (PARJ) platform, advancing African‑centred and global research.
After the Gun: Masculinity, Militarism, and the Gendered Political Culture of Post-Conflict Societies
After the Gun: Masculinity, Militarism, and the Gendered Political Culture of Post-Conflict Societies ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ DOI _ 10.5281/zenodo.20265288___________________ Abraham Kuol Nyuon, Ph.D. nyuonabraham7@gmail.com ; nyuonabraham@gc.uoj.edu.ss Received: January 11,2024 | Revised: May 21,2024 | Accepted: August 7,2024 | Published: October 13,2024 Real author block incorporated using Nyuon institutional details; correspondence and ORCID can be added at submission stage if required. Abstract After the Gun: Masculinity, Militarism, and the Gendered Political Culture of Post-Conflict Societies examines the reproduction of armed masculine authority inside post-conflict governance, everyday community power, and reintegration practice. The article places South Sudan at the centre of the analysis, but it resists treating the case as uniquely exceptional or analytically sealed off from wider African and global debates. Instead, it brings Feminist security studies (Enloe; Tickner; Connell on hegemonic masculinity); critical military studies (Higate; Woodward); post-conflict gender relations (Pankhurst; El-Bushra). Examines how armed conflict constructs, transforms, and reproduces masculine identity in ways that shape post-conflict political culture and governance. into one conversation and develops the concept of militarised masculinity to explain how formal norms, institutional design, and practical struggles over authority become fused. Using Life history interviews with former combatants (including former child soldiers) in South Sudan and diaspora communities; ethnographic observation of community political life in Jonglei and Eastern Equatoria; critical discourse analysis of political leadership rhetoric and state ceremonial; comparison with Liberia and Sierra
Copyright (c) 2026 African Peace and Conflict Studies (Broader - Interdisciplinary)
Who Speaks for Conflict? Epistemic Justice and the Political Economy of African Conflict Studies
Who Speaks for Conflict? Epistemic Justice and the Political Economy of African Conflict Studies examines the unequal distribution of authority to define African conflict, validate evidence, and convert field access into academic prestige. The article places South Sudan at the centre of the analysis, but it resists treating the case as uniquely exceptional or analytically sealed off from wider African and global debates. Instead, it brings Sociology of knowledge (Bourdieu; Foucault); epistemic justice (Fricker); decolonial methodology (Ndlovu-Gatsheni; Mignolo; Smith). Examines who produces knowledge about African conflicts, the institutional conditions shaping that production, and its political economic consequences for African scholars and subjects. into one conversation and develops the concept of epistemic asymmetry to explain how formal norms, institutional design, and practical struggles over authority become fused. Using Bibliometric analysis of leading conflict studies journals (Journal of Peace Research, Security Studies, African Affairs) measuring African authorship, institutional affiliation, and citation networks; interviews with African and Northern scholars on research funding and career structures; comparative analysis of knowledge production conditions across five African universities., the paper reconstructs three linked propositions. First, it shows that the political economy of authorship and citation. Second, it demonstrates that funding infrastructures and research agendas. Third, it argues that toward decolonised institutional redesign. The paper answers the central puzzle posed by the research agenda—how do the structural conditions of academic knowledge production — funding sources, journal hierarchies, peer review networks, fieldwork access, and
AFRICAN PEACE AND CONFLICT STUDIES (BROADER - INTERDISCIPLINARY)Wars Across Borders: Regional Conflict Systems and Armed-Group Mobility in the Sudan-South Sudan-CAR-DRC Nexus
Violence across the Sudan–South Sudan–Central African Republic (CAR)–Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) borderlands cannot be understood as a set of discrete national conflicts. Armed groups operate within a regional system in which survival depends on the ability to exploit borders, navigate uneven state capacity, and embed themselves in transnational networks of trade, migration, and sanctuary. The concept of borderland regionalisation captures how these dynamics produce a connected conflict space rather than isolated crises. Situated within debates on regional conflict systems, borderland political economy, and state formation, the manuscript examines how cross-border dynamics sustain armed mobilisation. Focusing on the Sudan–South Sudan–CAR–DRC nexus, the study addresses three interrelated questions: how armed groups sustain themselves through cross-border resource extraction, arms acquisition, and access to safe havens, and what this reveals about the regional political economy of conflict; how state actors—particularly Sudan, Uganda, and the CAR government—manage, enable, or suppress armed groups for strategic purposes; and under what conditions regional mechanisms, including IGAD, ICGLR, and the African Union, effectively address cross-border conflict dynamics versus becoming arenas for competing state interests. Methodologically, the study combines regional political economy mapping using UN Panel of Experts reports, ACLED conflict data, and small arms trafficking documentation (SAS), with case studies of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Murle armed groups, and Rizeigat militias as cross-border actors. It further incorporates interviews with IGAD and ICGLR officials and network analysis of transnational supply chains. The findings show, first, that armed gr
Peace Agreements as Political Texts: Performance, Interpretation, and the R-ARCSS Implementation Gap
Peace Agreements as Political Texts: Performance, Interpretation, and the R-ARCSS Implementation Gap examines the persistent gap between negotiated commitments and lived political order, showing how this gap is produced as much by interpretation and performance as by technical incapacity. Centering South Sudan without treating it as exceptional, the study situates the case within broader debates in interpretive political science, sociolegal studies, and performative theory. It develops the concept of the performative peace text to explain how formal provisions, institutional design, and struggles over authority become fused during implementation. Drawing on interpretive textual analysis of the CPA (2005), ARCSS (2015), and R-ARCSS (2018); implementation tracking through Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission reports; interviews with negotiators, mediators, and civil society monitors; and comparative analysis with the Arusha, Lomé, and Abuja agreements, the study advances three linked propositions. First, ambiguity in peace agreements functions as political design rather than technical flaw. Second, implementation unfolds as an interpretive struggle among competing actors. Third, participatory drafting reshapes the authority and contestability of peace texts. The analysis addresses the central puzzle of how the R-ARCSS should be read as a political text, showing that its ambiguities, omissions, and contradictions reveal the underlying political settlement it encodes rather than the formal order it appears to establish. It treats institutions, narratives, and policy frameworks as political instruments rather than neutral containers. The study concludes that reform efforts fail when they target implementation gaps without addressing the underlying distribution of power
Wars Across Borders: Regional Conflict Systems and Armed-Group Mobility in the Sudan-South Sudan-CAR-DRC Nexus
From Guerrilla Administration to Fragile Statehood: Rebel Governance Legacies and the SPLMs Institutional Afterlife, 1983-2023
Wartime repertoires as institutional blueprints provide a framework for understanding rebel governance and post-conflict state formation, focusing on the SPLM as a political organisation from 1983 to 2023. The central argument is that governance routines created during insurgency become durable organisational repertoires that shape how post-conflict states tax, adjudicate, command, and distribute authority. Drawing on within-case process tracing using SPLM archives, New Sudan Council of Churches documentation, oral histories with Nasir and Torit faction commanders, and ethnographic fieldwork in Juba, Malakal, and Yei, the study engages debates in rebel governance theory, historical institutionalism on path dependence, and Migdal’s “state-in-society” framework. It shows that insurgent governance repertoires are not merely antecedent but constitutive of post-conflict state institutions. Three core claims are advanced. First, SPLM/A wartime practices of taxation, military command, local justice, and movement discipline supplied both personnel and institutional habits to the post-2005 state. Second, personalized command and factional brokerage, while effective for insurgent survival, translated into fragmented chains of accountability once embedded in state institutions. Third, rebel governance legacies can be adaptive when they routinize local service delivery and negotiation, but become pathological when coercive extraction is normalised as a primary technique of rule.
Beyond the Passive Victim Paradigm: Child Soldiers as Political Subjects in South Sudan
Political subjecthood under structural coercion is advanced as an analytical lens for understanding how the passive-victim paradigm obscures the political agency of children recruited into armed conflict. Rather than presenting a descriptive account, the manuscript repositions child soldiers as political subjects—engaging questions of agency, structural coercion, and the limitations of disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR) frameworks—within broader debates on African political order, state formation, and institutional design. Anchored in South Sudan, Uganda, and South Sudanese diaspora communities, the study addresses three interrelated questions: how structural conditions such as poverty, displacement, family fragmentation, and ethnic mobilisation—rather than individual predation—drive child recruitment; how DDR frameworks designed around adult male ex-combatants systematically marginalize child soldiers, particularly girls, children with conflict-born children, and those associated with state forces; and what reintegration outcomes reveal about the relationship between community-level social repair, customary justice practices, and psychological recovery across diverse ethno-linguistic settings. Methodologically, the study employs longitudinal qualitative research with former child soldiers across South Sudan, Uganda, and diaspora contexts, combining life history interviews, critical discourse analysis of DDR programme documentation (UNICEF, IOM, UNMISS), and participant observation in reintegration programmes. The approach is complemented by reflexive engagement with researcher positionality. The central analytical contribution lies not only in explaining South Sudanese and comparative experiences, but in clarifying the conditions under which instituti
Political subjecthood under structural coercion is advanced as an analytical lens for understanding how the passive-victim paradigm obscures the political agency of children recruited into armed conflict. Rather than presenting a descriptive account
the manuscript repositions child soldiers as political subjects—engaging questions of agency
and reintegration (DDR) frameworks—within broader debates on African political order
This article develops borderland regionalisation as an analytical lens for under standing regional conflict systems, borderland political economy, and cross-border armed-group survival. Rather than treating regional conflict systems and cross-border armed group dynamics: the sudan–south sudan–car–drc nexus as a descriptive case, the ma nuscript argues that conflict in the Sudan-South Sudan-CAR-DRC space is best understood as a regional conflict system in which armed actors survive by arbitraging borders, exploiting differentiated state capacities, and embedding violence in trade, migrati on, and sanctuary networks. Anchored in Regional conflict systems theory (Buzan & Wæver; Lemke; Pugh & Cooper); small arms trafficking networks (Stohl; Florquin); political economy of border regions (Roitman). Theorises how conflict dynamics in one state a re constitutively linked to armed group behaviour, arms flows, and political alignments across a regional complex. the paper translates the topic brief into three linked questions: How do armed groups in the Sudan–South Sudan–CAR–DRC regional complex susta in themselves through cross-border resource extraction, arms acquisition, and safe haven access and what does this reveal about the regional political economy of armed conflict? What role do state actors particularly Sudan, Uganda, and the CAR governme nt play in managing, enabling, or suppressing cross-border armed group activity for strategic purposes? Under what conditions do regional conflict management mechanisms IGAD, ICGLR, AU effectively address cross-border conflict dynamics versus becomin g sites of competing state interests? Methodologically, it is organised around Regional political economy mapping using UN Panel of Experts reports, conflict event data (ACLED), and arms
This article develops political subjecthood under structural coercion as an analytical lens for understanding how the passive-victim paradigm obscures the political subjectivity of children recruited into war. Rather than treating the topic as a descriptive case note, the manuscript positions child soldiers as political subjects: agency, structural coercion, and the failure of disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration in south sudan within wider debates on African political order, state formation, and institutional design. The paper is anchored in South Sudan, Uganda, and South Sudanese diaspora communities, and it uses the topic brief's theoretical architecture to ask three linked questions: how do the structural conditions of poverty, displacement, family dissolution, and ethnic mobilisation rather than individual predation constitute the primary drivers of child combatant recruitment in the south sudanese context? In what ways do DDR frameworks designed around adult male ex-combatants systematically fail child soldiers particularly girls, those with children born of conflict, and children associated with government forces rather than rebel groups? What do reintegration outcomes reveal about the relationship between community-level social repair mechanisms, customary justice practices, and the psychological recovery of former child soldiers in South Sudan's diverse ethno-linguistic communities? Methodologically, the article translates the proposed design into a publication-ready strategy built around longitudinal qualitative research with former child soldiers in south sudan, uganda, and diaspora communities; life history interviews; critical discourse analysis of ddr programme documentation (unicef, iom, unmiss); participant observation in reintegration programm
This article develops political subjecthood under structural coercion as an analytical lens for understanding how the passive-victim paradigm obscures the political subjectivity of children recruited into war. Rather than treating the topic as a descriptive case note
the manuscript positions child soldiers as political subjects: agency
and reintegration in south sudan within wider debates on African political order
and institutional design. The paper is anchored in South Sudan
This article examines Food Security as National Security: Agricultural Policy and Conflict Prevention: Accountability, Transparency, and Reform with a focused emphasis on Côte d'Ivoire within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a conference paper that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.
Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
This article develops wartime repertoires as institutional blueprints as an analytical lens for understanding rebel governance and post-conflict state formation: the splm as a political organisation, 1983–2023. It argues that the governance routines created by insurgent movements during war become durable organisational repertoires that shape how post-conflict states tax, adjudicate, command, and distribute authority. Drawing on within-case process tracing drawing on splm archives, new sudan council of churches documentation, oral histories with nasir and torit faction commanders, and ethnographic fieldwork in juba, malakal, and yei., the paper links the theoretical debates identified in rebel governance theory (mampilly; arjona; kasfir); historical institutionalism on path dependence; migdal's 'state-in-society' framework. argues that the governance repertoires developed by armed movements during insurgency are constitutive of not merely antecedent to post-conflict state institutions. to a comparative and historically grounded reading of South Sudan and the related cases assembled in the research design. The article advances three core claims. First, the SPLM/As wartime practices of taxation, military command, local justice, and movement discipline supplied both personnel and institutional habits to the post-2005 state. Second, personalized command and factional brokerage, while effective for insurgent survival, translated into fragmented chains of accountability once embedded inside state ministries and security institutions. Third, rebel governance legacies can be adaptive when they routinize local service delivery and negotiation, but they become pathological when coercive extraction is normalised as the primary technique of rule. The contribution is twofold: it rew
Memorialisation and the Politics of Memory in Post-Atrocity Societies
This article examines Memorialisation and the Politics of Memory in Post-Atrocity Societies: An African Union Perspective with a focused emphasis on Egypt within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a theoretical framework article that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.
Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The Cluster System in Complex Humanitarian Emergencies
This article examines The Cluster System in Complex Humanitarian Emergencies: Coordination, Effectiveness, and Reform: A Critical Examination with a focused emphasis on Morocco within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a theoretical framework article that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.
Copyright (c) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Medical Neutrality and the Targeting of Health Facilities in African Conflicts
This article examines Medical Neutrality and the Targeting of Health Facilities in African Conflicts: Policy Implications for Fragile States with a focused emphasis on Comoros within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a comparative study that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.
Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Fisheries Conflict and Security in Lake Victoria
This article examines Fisheries Conflict and Security in Lake Victoria: Resource Depletion and Community Violence: International Norms, Local Realities with a focused emphasis on Mozambique within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a book review that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.
Copyright (c) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Cybercrime and Digital Security Threats in East Africa
This article examines Cybercrime and Digital Security Threats in East Africa: Financial Fraud, Hacking, and State Responses: Perspectives from Eastern Africa with a focused emphasis on Ghana within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a working paper that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.
This article examines Children's Rights in Armed Conflict: Recruitment, Use, and Protection Under International Law: Historical Antecedents and Contemporary Relevance with a focused emphasis on São Tomé and Príncipe within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a action research study that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.
Copyright (c) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Internally Displaced Persons and the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement
This article examines Internally Displaced Persons and the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement: Historical Antecedents and Contemporary Relevance with a focused emphasis on Ethiopia within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a book review that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.
Child Protection in Humanitarian Settings
This article examines Child Protection in Humanitarian Settings: Unaccompanied Children, Abuse Prevention, and Care: The Role of Civil Society with a focused emphasis on Kenya within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a survey research article that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.
This article examines Blood Diamonds and Conflict Financing: The Kimberley Process and Its Limitations: A Feminist Political Economy Approach with a focused emphasis on Morocco within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a qualitative study that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.
Telecommunications Surveillance and Political Dissent
This article examines Telecommunications Surveillance and Political Dissent: Monitoring of Opposition in East Africa: Theoretical Framework and Empirical Analysis with a focused emphasis on Niger within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a survey research article that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.
This article examines South Sudan National Security Service: Functions, Abuses, and Reform Imperatives: Power, Agency, and Structural Change with a focused emphasis on South Sudan within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a mixed methods study that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.
This article examines The Right to Food as a Security Issue: Conflict-Induced Famine and State Responsibility: The Role of Civil Society with a focused emphasis on Senegal within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a theoretical framework article that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.
Foreign Terrorist Fighter Flows to and from African Conflicts
This article examines Foreign Terrorist Fighter Flows to and from African Conflicts: Youth Perspectives and Intergenerational Justice with a focused emphasis on Liberia within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a theoretical framework article that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.
WASH (Water, Sanitation, Hygiene) in Conflict
This article examines WASH (Water, Sanitation, Hygiene) in Conflict: Technical Standards and Operational Challenges: Post-CPA and Beyond with a focused emphasis on Nigeria within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a ethnographic study that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.
This article develops wartime repertoires as institutional blueprints as an analytical lens for understanding rebel governance and post-conflict state formation: the splm as a political organisation, 1983–2023. It argues that the governance routines created by insurgent movements during war become durable organisational repertoires that shape how pos t-conflict states tax, adjudicate, command, and distribute authority. Drawing on within-case process tracing drawing on splm archives, new sudan council of churches documentation, oral histories with nasir and torit faction commanders, and ethnographic fie ldwork in juba, malakal, and yei., the paper links the theoretical debates identified in rebel governance theory (mampilly; arjona; kasfir); historical institutionalism on path dependence; migdal's 'state-in-society' framework. argues that the governance r epertoires developed by armed movements during insurgency are constitutive of not merely antecedent to post-conflict state institutions. to a comparative and historically grounded reading of South Sudan and the related cases assembled in the research d esign. The article advances three core claims. First, the SPLM/As wartime practices of taxation, military command, local justice, and movement discipline supplied both personnel and institutional habits to the post-2005 state. Second, personalized command and factional brokerage, while effective for insurgent survival, translated into fragmented chains of accountability once embedded inside state ministries and security institutions. Third, rebel governance legacies can be adaptive when they routinize local service delivery and negotiation, but they become pathological when coercive extraction is normalised as the primary technique of rule. The contribution is twofold: it
Targeted Killing, Drone Warfare, and International Law in African Counter-Terrorism
This article examines Targeted Killing, Drone Warfare, and International Law in African Counter-Terrorism: Rural and Urban Dimensions with a focused emphasis on Tanzania within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a survey research article that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.
Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Conflict Settings
This article examines Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Conflict Settings: Burden, Capacity, and Integration: Digital Transformation and Emerging Challenges with a focused emphasis on Niger within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a comparative study that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.
This article examines Kenya's Dadaab and Kakuma Camps: Politics of Encampment, Livelihoods, and Durable Solutions with a focused emphasis on Kenya within the field of Political Science. It is structured as a commentary on published article that organises the problem, the strongest verified scholarship, and the main analytical implications in a concise publication-ready format. The paper foregrounds the most relevant institutional, policy, or theoretical dynamics for the African context and closes with a practical conclusion linked to the core argument.