Vol. 1 No. 1 (2026)
Rebel Governance and Post-Conflict State Formation: The SPLM as a Political Organisation, 1983-2023
Abraham Kuol Nyuon
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19565474
Published: April 14, 2026
Abstract
This article examines how the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) developed distinctive governance repertoires during its four-decade insurgency (1983-2005) and how these wartime institutional practices fundamentally shaped the architecture of the post-independence South Sudanese state. Drawing on rebel governance theory, historical institutionalism, and Migdal's state-in-society framework, this study argues that the governance practices developed by armed movements during insurgency are constitutive of - not merely antecedent to - post-conflict state institutions. Through process tracing of SPLM administrative, taxation, and justice practices from the New Sudan period through independence, this research identifies the mechanisms through which rebel organisational culture - including factional competition, personalised command structures, and predatory extraction - was translated into post-independence governance pathologies. The findings demonstrate that the SPLM's wartime governance legacy has produced a hybrid state formation trajectory characterised by the institutionalisation of armed movement practices, with profound implications for post-conflict statebuilding theory and practice in Africa.
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Abraham Kuol Nyuon (2026). Rebel Governance and Post-Conflict State Formation: The SPLM as a Political Organisation, 1983-2023. African Security Studies (Interdisciplinary - Social/Political focus), Vol. 1 No. 1 (2026). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19565474
Keywords
Rebel governanceSPLMpost-conflict statebuildingpath dependencearmed movement institutionalisationSouth SudanNew Sudangovernance legacies
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Vol. 1 No. 1 (2026)
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