Øystein H. Rolandsen

• PhD History
• Research Professor at Peace Research Institute Oslo

The Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement/Army's National Convention and Political Changes in the Southern Sudan during the 1990s The last few years have brought prospects for peace in the Southern Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army has represented the southerners at the negotiation table." Guerrilla Government" provides the historic...

South Sudan is the world's youngest independent country. Established in 2011 after two wars, South Sudan has since reverted to a state of devastating civil strife. This book provides a general history of the new country, from the arrival of Turco-Egyptian explorers in Upper Nile, the turbulence of the Mahdist revolutionary period, the chaos of the...

This article is a case study of armed opposition factions in the Central Equatoria region within South Sudan’s current civil war. Based on research in South Sudan and northern Uganda during the spring of 2017, the study focuses on the internal organisation, recruitment and funding processes, and political ideas of these organisations, engaging with...

Trade and markets in weak states are often discussed in relation with violence, security and peace-building. A case in point are marketplaces in the Sudan-South Sudan borderlands where communities separated by insecurity and hostility meet, not only to trade but also to negotiate and exchange information. This does not imply that establishment of s...

In 1963, unrest in Sudan's three southern provinces (today's South Sudan) escalated into a civil war between the government and the Anya-Nya rebellion. The subsequent eight years of violence has hitherto largely escaped scrutiny from academic researchers and has remained a subject of popular imagination and politicised narratives. This article demo...

During the Syrian War, the US and other Western countries trained, equipped and paid Syrian rebels to fight the government and, later, root out the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). When states use armed groups to attain foreign policy objectives, control is a key concern. The US sought to enforce such control over providers and recipien...

Security Force Assistance (SFA) is presented as a panacea for security threats and governance problems in the Global South. Using Mali as a point of departure, in this article we explore the complex reality of SFA in a state with a highly fragmented security sector. A plethora of SFA providers collectively leaves a negative impact on the cohesion o...

Security Force Assistance (SFA) – the training and equipping of a foreign security force – represent a common form of intervention into fragile states. This introduction assesses the state of the field of SFA research and focuses on dynamics specific to recipient states with fragmented security sectors. Based on insights from the contributions to t...

The Sahel region is severely affected by organised violence and an important focus area for security force assistance (SFA). Such assistance aims to build the capacity of government forces to wage counter-insurgency and counter-terror campaigns, prevent organised crime, and control borders. This policy brief discusses challenges related to provisio...

This longitudinal study explores the place of the civilian populations in the wars of what is now South Sudan. Using a broad range of empirical evidence, we trace the evolution of conflict practices and norms from the 1800s to today. Two main insights stand out: First, since the initial colonial incursions, local residents have been strategic asset...

Our research is about peace agreements with reference to ARCSS and the latter version R-ARCSS, which cast a lot of doubt above implementation of the latter.

ECOWAS and IGAD are two African sub-regional organisations that are expected to play a crucial role in prevention and resolution of conflicts as well as peacebuilding. Their track-records are uneven, but especially ECOWAS is contributing significantly in terms of democratic transitions, and preventing coup d’états and civil wars. In this report, t...

What are the conditions under which businesses can move beyond ‘doing no harm’ in the fragile and conflict-affected societies where they work to deliver more tangible positive peace dividends? Designed for businesses, practitioners, scholars and others who are interested and engaged in corporate impact in such areas, this report provides an overvie...

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the current state of South Sudan. A main argument is that its political economy is fundamentally atypical: achieving independence in 2011 and dissolving into renewed civil war in 2013, South Sudan is suffering the crisis of a weak, neo-patrimonial guerrilla government, with fragmented military-politi...

The Regional Protection Force mandate and current peace diplomacy rest on several key assumptions. One is that the current peace process can be salvaged. Another is that Juba needs to be ‘stabilized.’ Finally, that there are two coherent ‘sides’ to the conflict whose leaders can enforce a negotiated settlement. In this Briefing, we argue that these...

The massive expenditure on UN peacekeeping missions combined with a significant commitment of personnel and infrastructure creates ‘peacekeeping economies’ within host societies. We need to understand when and how peacekeeping economies are created and the kinds of factors that mitigate their occurrence, size and impact. Previous research indicates...

The new civil war in South Sudan began in December 2013. It soon proved to be a disaster for the population, a threat to the integrity of the world’s youngest state and an embarrassment and conundrum to the international community. The article surveys the first year of this war. It outlines the course of military engagements, the consequences of th...

Popular explanations for the outbreak of a new civil war in South Sudan have centred on ethnic factors and leadership personalities. This article demonstrates that the conflict is rooted in deep cleavages within the ruling political party, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). When internal tensions came to a head in late 2013, a combinati...

Introduction to special issue: The articles gathered in this issue of the International Journal of African Historical Studies focus on the role of violence in the consolidation of state power in eastern Africa, from the late 1950s into the early 1980s.1 These were critical years in the modern history of the region, witnessing the transition from co...

Over the fifty years between 1940 and 1990, the countries of eastern Africa were embroiled in a range of debilitating and destructive conflicts, starting with the wars of independence, but then incorporating rebellion, secession and local insurrection as the Cold War replaced colonialism. The articles gathered here illustrate how significant, wides...

Over the 50 years between 1940 and 1990, the countries of eastern Africa were embroiled in a range of debilitating and destructive conflicts, starting with the wars of independence, but then incorporating rebellion, secession and local insurrection as the Cold War replaced colonialism. The articles gathered here illustrate how significant, widespre...

The Torit Mutiny of August 1955 in southern Sudan did not trigger a civil war, but state violence and disorder escalated over the following years. We explore how the outlook and strategies of the government officials who inherited the state apparatus of the Anglo-Egyptian condominium contributed to this development. They perpetuated authoritarian a...

This book offers a state-of-the-art examination of peacemaking, looking at its theoretical assumptions, empirical applications and its consequences. Despite the wealth of research on external interventions and practices of Western peacebuilding, many...

National borders in Africa are often presented as arbitrary and problematic impositions of European colonial powers. Although the new international border between the Republic of Sudan (Sudan) and South Sudan is not one of those, it originated during the colonial government of the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium (1899–1956) and it continues to be contes...

South Sudan’s secession from Sudan on July 9th 2011 has changed the relative imbalance of power and international standing of the two parties, bringing South Sudan more on par with Sudan. Compared to the negotiations preceding the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, less is at stake in the current AUHIP process.

Critics decry the 2005 peace agreement between the government of the Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement as incomplete, a result of the desire of external actors for a quick solution that is neither truly comprehensive nor sustainable. Through a chronological analysis of the peace process between 2000 and 2005, this article demonstrate...

Political tension, local violence and government suppression escalated in the Southern Sudan in the late 1950s and early 1960s. During this period of increasing international acceptance of “freedom fighters” and “wars of liberation”, groups of politicians in exile together with militarily trained Southerners progressively focused their efforts towa...

Historians usually trace the start of the first civil war in the Southern Sudan to the Torit mutiny of 1955. However, organized political violence did not reach the level of civil war until 1963. This article argues that 1955–62 was a period of increasing political tension, local low-intensity violence, and social and economic stagnation. It shows...