South Sudan: The Perils of Payroll Peace

The Conflict and Research Programme at the London School of Economics, of which WPF is a partner, has just published a new South Sudan Policy Memo, “The Perils of Payroll Peace.”

South Sudan’s peace is structured to create material incentives for political elites and soldiers to stick to the agreement. But it also creates a huge opportunity for the parties to mobilize for a new round of war. This happens through the process of cantonment of large numbers of young men in preparation for either integration into a new national army or becoming the beneficiaries of a disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programme. This memo uses the framework of the political marketplace. Drawing on the experience of recent peace agreements in South Sudan, it points to the explosive potential of the security arrangements provisions of the current peace agreement as currently implemented and makes suggestions for how those dangers might be minimized.

The Conflict Research Programme aims to understand why contemporary violence is so difficult to end and to analyse the underlying political economy of violence with a view to informing policy. Its research sites are Iraq, Syria, South Sudan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.