ABSTRACT
South Sudan seceded in 2011 after decades of civil war, and descended into another round of fighting nearly two years later. The ongoing war has deepened divisions and fuelled animosities among South Sudanese communities as violence increasingly acquired ethnic overtones. In this chapter, I examine this development, and argue that, to a great extent, it has been caused by national development efforts pursued by South Sudanese elites and external actors prior to, and after, independence that concentrated on institutions building and neglected nation building as well as elite manipulation of ethnicity for selfish reasons. It is, however, worth noting that the potency of ethnic differences in the context of the war has more to do with instrumentalization of ethnicity by elites than ethnic diversity per se. Accordingly, I focus on the decisions and actions of elites. In essence, I therefore agree with the authors, like Alex de Waal, who mainly blame the actions and decisions of South Sudanese elites for the predicament that the country is going through. The chapter mainly draws on information generated during recent fieldworks in South Sudan and camps for refugees in Uganda.
