A year after independence, continuing tension with the North is not the only challenge facing South Sudan. From the uncertain fate of the disputed territory of Abyei and cross-border inter-communal conflicts, to a lack of economic infrastructure and food insecurity, combined with a persistent failure to build successful institutions, South Sudan’s beginning as an independent state is rife with dangers.
Territorial Self-governance
A resolvable frozen conflict? Designing a settlement for Transnistria
This article analyses a range of existing proposals that reflect the Moldovan, Russian/Transnistrian, and Mediators’ positions to date and proposes a framework in which these proposals, and the relative consensus they exhibit, can be accommodated.
Post-conflict State Building: The Debate on Institutional Choice
This article finds substantial conceptual and empirical evidence that consociational institutions hold significant promise for building democratic states after conflict in divided societies.
Electoral Systems Design in Power-sharing Regimes
Published in Power Sharing: New Challenges for Divided Societies (ed. by Ian O'Flynn and David Russell, Pluto Press, 2006), this chapter focuses on electoral systems design as a key mechanism in the broader institutional design approach to the resolution of conflict...
Between Stability and Collapse: Internal and External Dynamics of Post-agreement Institution-building in Northern Ireland
Published as a contribution to From Powersharing to Democracy: Post-conflict Institutions in Ethnically Divided Societies (ed. by Sid Noel, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005), this chapter argues that, while far from perfect, power sharing is the only viable...
Autonomy, Self-governance and Conflict Resolution
Conflicts over the rights of self-defined population groups to determine their own destiny within the boundaries of existing states are among the most violent forms of inter-communal conflict. Many experts agree that autonomy regimes are a useful framework within...
Where next for a democratic Iraq?
The Iraqi elections and their results were certainly not a complete and utter failure in bringing Iraq closer to a democratic society but they also offer a glimpse at the challenges ahead.
The Institutional Structure of Regional Consociations
Published in Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, this article examines regional consociations as institutional designs that combine two elements of traditional conflict resolution approaches: territorial autonomy and consociational power-sharing. From a conflict...
Managing and Settling Ethnic Conflicts
Ethnic conflicts around the world devastate the lives of millions of people, destabilise national governments and undermine the prospects of sustainable development and successful transitions to democracy in entire regions. The threats to global peace and stability...