War and Genocide in South Sudan - by Clémence Pinaud (Paperback)

About the Book

"This book explores the relationship between predatory wealth accumulation, state formation, and extreme ethnic group entitlement with genocidal potential in South Sudan. It traces the rise of a predatory state during the second civil war (1983-2005) and its transformation into a violent Dinka ethnocracy after independence that waged genocide against non-Dinka civilians in the third civil war (2013-)"--

Book Synopsis

Using more than a decade's worth of fieldwork in South Sudan, Clémence Pinaud here explores the relationship between predatory wealth accumulation, state formation, and a form of racism--extreme ethnic group entitlement--that has the potential to result in genocide.

War and Genocide in South Sudan traces the rise of a predatory state during civil war in southern Sudan and its transformation into a violent Dinka ethnocracy after the region's formal independence. That new state, Pinaud argues, waged genocide against non-Dinka civilians in 2013-2017.

During a civil war that wrecked the region between 1983 and 2005, the predominantly Dinka Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) practiced ethnically exclusive and predatory wealth accumulation. Its actions fostered extreme group entitlement and profoundly shaped the rebel state. Ethnic group entitlement eventually grew into an ideology of ethnic supremacy.

After that war ended, the semi-autonomous state turned into a violent and predatory ethnocracy--a process accelerated by independence in 2011. The rise of exclusionary nationalism, a new security landscape, and inter-ethnic political competition contributed to the start of a new round of civil war in 2013, in which the recently founded state unleashed violence against nearly all non-Dinka ethnic groups. Pinaud investigates three campaigns waged by the South Sudan government in 2013-2017 and concludes they were genocidal--they sought to destroy non-Dinka target groups. She demonstrates how the perpetrators' sense of group entitlement culminated in land-grabs that amounted to a genocidal conquest echoing the imperialist origins of modern genocides.

Thanks to generous funding from TOME, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

Review Quotes

A deeply researched, arresting, and often brutal account of civil war in South Sudan, the violent events of which Pinaud argues constitute genocide. Based on 550 interviews across a range of locations, it is the detailed, first-person accounts of people's experiences of the war that brings the intimate experience of violence into sharp, and often brutal, relief. Required reading for the many people who care about South Sudan and its future.

-- "Global Responsibility to Protect"

Pinaud's approach is clear-eyed and systematic. She walks a careful line, avoiding oversimplifications that would characterize the war as an 'ethnic' conflict while demonstrating the central role that instrumentalized ethnicity played in fomenting and prosecuting events and is nuanced in her analysis of the various factions. Pinaud's book will be essential reading for anyone hoping to understand the roots of the present South Sudanese conflict; it also makes a significant contribution to sociological understanding of the political formation of mass atrocity.

-- "International Affairs"

Clemence Pinaud's book, War and Genocide in South Sudan, is one of the few books on South Sudan that attaches importance to oral tradition as a means for reconstructing unwritten history. War and Genocide in South Sudan adds to the historiography on a range of topics relative to the Sudan: war, conflict, the politics of liberation, the economy, and genocide. Future scholars who wish to write about the Second and Third Civil Wars will start from where Pinaud's research stops.

-- "H-Diplo"

About the Author

Clémence Pinaud is Assistant Professor at Indiana University. Follow her on X @ClemencePinaud.