Publication

This paper contends that past attempts at 1) security sector reform (SSR) and 2) disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) in South Sudan have failed to ‘right-size’ the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and change the country’s overall security apparatus. As a result, the text’s authors argue that if these efforts aren’t reinvented and reconsidered in a more radical way, little will change in South Sudan. One of the impediments to change, by the way, is that the government, the SPLA and SPLA In Opposition (SPLA-IO) continue to function as highly centralized and hard-to-break patronage systems.