When Peace Kills Politics : International Intervention and Unending Wars in the Sudans

When Peace Kills Politics explains the role of international peacemaking in reproducing violence and political authoritarianism in Sudan and South Sudan in recent decades. Srinivasan explains how Sudan’s landmark north–south peace process that achieved the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement fueled war in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile alongside how it contributed to Sudan’s failed political transformation and newly independent South Sudan’s rapid descent into civil war. Concluding with the conspicuous absence of ‘peace’ when non-violent revolutionary political change came to Sudan in 2019, Srinivasan examines at close range why outsiders’ peace projects may displace civil politics and raise the political currency of violence. With an original contribution to theorizing peace and peacemaking drawing upon the political thought of Hannah Arendt, the book is an analysis of the tragic shortcomings of attempting to build a non-violent political realm through neat designs and tools of compulsion, where the end goal of peace becomes caught up in idealized constitutional texts, technocratic templates and deals on sharing spoils. When Peace Kills Politics demands a radical rethinking of the project of peace in civil wars, grounded in a more earnest commitment to civil political action. Why have war and coercion dominated the political realm in the Sudans, a decade after South Sudan's independence and fifteen years after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement? This book explains the tragic role of international peacemaking in reproducing violence and political authoritarianism in Sudan and South Sudan. Sharath Srinivasan charts the destructive effects of Sudan's landmark north-south peace process, from how it fuelled war in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile to its contribution to Sudan's failed political transformation and South Sudan's rapid descent into civil war. Concluding with the conspicuous absence of 'peace' when non-violent revolutionary political change came to Sudan in 2019, Srinivasan examines at close range why outsiders' peace projects may displace civil politics and raise the political currency of violence. This is an analysis of the perils of attempting to build a non-violent political realm through neat designs and tools of compulsion, where the end goal of peace becomes caught up in idealised constitutional texts, technocratic templates and deals on sharing spoils. When Peace Kills Politics shows that these methods, ultimately anti-political, will be resisted - often violently - by dissatisfied local actors Front Matter Dedication Epigraph Acknowledgements Map Introduction 1. Rethinking: What Are We Doing When Making Peace? 2. Making: Competing Designs on Peace in Sudan 3. Simplifying: The Means of Making a 'North-South' Peace 4. Resisting: 'Peace' in Sudan by Means of War in Darfur 5. Lying: International Duplicity and Complicity in Darfur 6. Hollowing: Sudan's Destitute Politics after Peace 7. Unfounding: The Violence in South Sudan's Failed Political Beginning 8. Unending: Cycles of War, Intervention and Making and Breaking Peace Postscript: Sudan's 2019 Revolution, Beginning Anew Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index Why, over a decade since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and despite a litany of conflict resolution efforts, do war and coercion still dominate the political realm in the Sudans? This book explains the paradoxical role of international peacemaking in the reproduction of violence and political authoritarianism in Sudan and South Sudan. Sharath Srinivasan charts the destructive effects of the peace process, from the role of north-south negotiations in fuelling war in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile to the failure of the political transformation promised by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement