ABSTRACT
The legitimacy of the struggle and the domestic legitimacy of the new state are two different things both contextually and in terms of the political, economic and institutional challenges. Besides, the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) does not seem to have earned wide public consent for its development policy. This chapter explores some aspects of this problem by focusing on the land question, which was not only a major structural factor behind the protracted war, but has also come to encompass a variety of issues with serious implications for accountability, internal pacification and unification, and statebuilding in South Sudan. The issues addressed are large-scale land grabbing by potential investors, resettlement, urban migration and residential land grabbing, and land-related violent conflicts and the governance crisis in the states. The governance crisis, due to the escalation of resource conflicts and their links to rebel militias, as exemplified by the case of Jonglei.
