The other side of resistance: Challenges to inclusivity within civil society and the limits of international peace mediation

Abstract

Research on resistance to the inclusion of civil society in peace mediation focuses on armed parties and elites as sites of resistance. Such focus grounds policies that prescribe various strategies and process designs that mediators could employ. The mediation of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in South Sudan from 2012 to 2015 featured such strategies and attempts at various formats, including strong leverage from South Sudan’s neighbors and top development partners. However, civil society’s inclusion did not fully materialize, and armed clashes continued. Examining this mediation process, this article examines two structural challenges to civil society inclusion under-examined in mediation research. First, divisions within civil society can perpetuate divisions among warring parties and hinder the expected benefits of civil society inclusion. Second, the norms of consent and protecting lives considered definitional in peace mediation prioritize armed parties over civil society, limiting mediators’ ability to promote the latter’s inclusion and potentially encouraging further violence.

Keywords

civil society conflict international peace mediation norms resistance

Introduction

There is a growing agreement among peacebuilding, human rights, and development practitioners on the importance of inclusivity in peace processes (Bell, 2019). With inclusivity, peace is built through “a dynamic, co-constituted, emergent and necessarily adaptive process that includes multiple knowledges and actors (Danielsson, 2020: 1087).” Practitioners and peace researchers link inclusive processes with greater ownership (Barnes, 2002; Donais and McCandless, 2017; Vogelaar, 2018), legitimacy (Arnault, 2014; Barnes, 2002; Belloni, 2001; Lehti, 2019; Nilsson, 2012), more resilient social contracts (Zahar and McCandless, 2020), and other attributes linked to sustainable peace. Given these findings in research, inclusivity has emerged from a buzzword into a policy mainstreamed in various peacebuilding programs (Bell, 2019; Hellmüller, 2019b; Paffenholz and Zartman, 2019).

As part of peacebuilding, international peace mediation has incorporated inclusivity in its standards. A third-party, assisting conflict parties to resolve disputes and work toward a mutually agreed arrangement to end hostilities,¹ the mediator has been increasingly expected to promote a growing set of norms associated with “positive peace,” or sustainable peace beyond mere cessation of hostilities, such as justice, gender equality, and inclusivity (Hellmüller et al., 2015; Nathan, 2017; Richmond, 2018). A key policy document for mediation practitioners, the UN Guidance for Mediators, puts inclusivity as one of the “key fundamentals that should be considered in a mediation effort (United Nations, 2012: 3).” The premise is that greater inclusivity increases the chances of addressing the root causes of the conflict and the population’s needs, promotes ownership of the process, and reduces spoiling by actors excluded from the process (United Nations, 2012: 11).

While the inclusion of armed groups in mediation processes is still heatedly debated (Ghais, 2019; Hellmüller, 2019a; Lanz, 2011; Toros, 2008), civil society’s inclusion has gained widespread acceptance and become a prominent feature of the current inclusivity norm (Hellmüller, 2020; Paffenholz, 2014a, 2014b; Paffenholz and Zartman, 2019). In this article, civil society is broadly defined as a “sphere of uncoerced human association between the individual and the states, in which people undertake collective action for normative and substantive purposes, relatively independent of government and the market (Edwards, 2012: 5).” Research finds that civil society’s unarmed nature draws attention to political instead of military solutions to the conflict. They bring local knowledge into the peace process. Civil society in the talks increases transparency and fosters public support that exerts pressure on the main conflict parties (Barnes, 2002; Bell and O’Rourke, 2007; Hellmüller, 2019b; Hemmer et al., 2006; Orjuela, 2003; Paffenholz, 2014b; Wanis-St. John and Kew, 2008).

In cases where greater inclusion and its benefits were not achieved, resistance has been attributed primarily to armed parties and elites through spoiling and other tactics (Çuhadar, 2020; Stedman, 2008). Focusing on armed parties, mediation research and policy prescribe building up the mediator’s mandate to promote inclusivity early in the process, bolstering the mediation’s resources to counter conflict parties’ resistance, and implementing various mediation strategies and process designs (Hirblinger and Landau, 2020; Paffenholz, 2014b; United Nations, 2012).

However, the focus on armed groups as the problem and the mediator as the solution undermines other sources of resistance that critical peace research has increasingly observed in the broader peacebuilding field. Two are most relevant for this article. First, contrary to expectations that civil society is consistent with positive peace, diversity and divisions within civil society provide varying support and resistance to the peace process. Second, the peacebuilding intervention itself may reinforce barriers to greater inclusion and sustainable peace. While these have been observed separately in mediation processes (Aeby, 2016; Nathan, 2017; Paffenholz, 2015b), how the two factors hinder greater inclusion particularly in peace mediation processes has not been explained.

In the mediation that led to the 2015 Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (ARCSS), the mediators mandated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) had an early and robust mandate for greater inclusivity, extensive political and economic leverage, and different process designs. However, at the end of the talks in 2015, expectations consistent with positive peace were nowhere in sight: civil society’s inclusion in the talks and agreement were downplayed, and armed parties continued and even escalated their armed clashes.

While the armed parties’ role in this outcome has been detailed (Akol, 2014; Johnson, 2016; Vertin, 2018), this research observes the salience of two structural factors in enabling their resistance. First, divisions within civil society in South Sudan contributed to varied and even conflicting proposals from civil society, where several aligned with the armed factions or countered liberal notions of sustainable peace. Second, the inherent priority of mediation processes to keep the consent of those most influential in protecting civilians’ right to life hindered the full participation envisioned for the civil society delegation. It also encouraged further violence from the armed actors to preserve their status as the main negotiating parties in the mediation process. This article’s analysis and findings draw from my Ph.D. research based on key documents, reports, and 128 semi-structured interviews with members of the delegations, the mediation team, international supporters, and observers of this mediation process.

Following this introduction, the next section details the current liberal bias in peace mediation research and draws from critical peace research to conceptualize the two structural sources of resistance currently under-examined in peace mediation processes. Through the case of South Sudan, the second section illustrates how these two sources worked in the context of the mediation process. The last part concludes with insights into the theory and policy implications of this research.

Structural sources of resistance to greater inclusivity in peace mediation

International peace mediation has long grappled with the inclusion of elites in power-sharing arrangements (Cheeseman, 2011; McGarry and O’leary, 2016; Sriram and Zahar, 2009). However, frustrations regarding these short-lived elite deals served as grounds for marginalized members of society to participate in peace processes. The move to greater inclusivity has become the latest feature of peace mediation’s adoption of the liberal peace paradigm that characterizes broader peacebuilding policies. Broadly, the liberal peace paradigm conceptualizes peace as facilitated by promoting democratic governance, a free-market economy, and sustainable solutions (Cavalcante, 2014; Newman et al., 2009; Richmond, 2012). In mediation, the focus is on balancing power between the different stakeholders, which implies promoting the importance of marginalized groups such as non-combatants, youth, and women in the peace process (Richmond, 2018).

Inclusivity in mediation research

Particularly in mediation research, studies find evidence linking the inclusion of a broader set of actors to sustainable peace, whether defined in terms of the durability of agreements, prolonged non-recurrence of violence, or consolidation (Castillejo, 2017; Donais and McCandless, 2016, 2017; Wanis-St. John and Kew, 2008). The inclusion of civil society would increase the buy-in and national ownership needed to implement the peace agreement. During the talks, civil society can also direct the attention to broader governance and justice issues that armed groups tend to ignore or downplay but are considered essential for the full recovery and restructuring of society (Donais and McCandless, 2017). Grounding these benefits, civil society is portrayed as the third way separate from the government and market, with constituencies reaching the grassroots levels.

Insights into the peace potential of including civil society draw from successful cases such as Liberia and Sierra Leone (Donais and McCandless, 2017; Jewett, 2019). However, “failed” or “partial” inclusion cases indicate successful resistance to civil society inclusion or mixed results. In failed cases, civil society attempted to participate in the talks directly but did not secure a seat the mediation, such as in Zimbabwe (Aeby, 2015), the Sudan-South Sudan peace process, Aceh, and Turkey (Çuhadar, 2020). Partial inclusion has been observed in DRC, Sudan,² and Abkhazia, where civil society participated in certain aspects of the process. However, such level and kind of participation were below their intention (Çuhadar, 2020).

Research on failed or partial inclusion in peace mediation generally traces resistance from groups holding military, political, economic, and other forms of power in the conflict context and their motivations and strategies (Çuhadar, 2020; Hellmüller, 2019a; Jonas, 2000; Lorch, 2017; Marchetti and Tocci, 2009; World Bank, 2006). Moreover, research on spoiling has explained how conflict parties resort to arms to be included in the peace process or boycott the talks as leverage against their rival conflict parties (Blaydes and de Maio, 2010; Hellmüller 2019a; Paffenholz, 2015a; Stedman, 1997; Zahar, 2010). As a response, research focused on engaging with armed actors and recommends that mediators bulk up their mandate, resources, and strategies to counter such leverage (de Waal, 2017; Hirblinger and Landau, 2020; Paffenholz, 2014a; Pring and Palmiano Federer, 2020). Research examining strategies for mediators is premised on the mediator’s agency vis-à-vis the conflict parties, particularly the mediator’s ability to design inclusive processes and persuade the conflict parties to adopt them.

Structural sources of resistance under-examined in mediation

Whether conflict parties or mediators, the focus on these actors to promote civil society’s inclusion reflects two biases in peace mediation research that, when examined, points to two structural challenges to inclusivity. Critical peace research has analyzed these biases in the broader peacebuilding field. However, mediation research has yet to integrate these fully into its explanations.

First, the anticipated benefits of civil society inclusion in peace mediation perpetuate a conceptualization of civil society as homogenously consistent with the liberal peace paradigm and undermine its potential active role in resisting greater inclusivity. Arguments for civil society’s inclusion depend on a fundamental assumption that civil society is neutral to the conflict and behaves according to western liberal expectations (Lewis, 2002). Civil society is portrayed as the third way between the market and state or an alternative to the warring parties. Mediation research has increasingly observed divisions within civil society (Aeby, 2016; Orjuela, 2005). However, beyond observation, mediation research glosses over explaining such internal divisions and proceeds to prescribe careful selection of who to include and how (Jewett, 2019; Paffenholz, 2014b).

For critical peace research, this leap to the selection of civil society reinforces its critique of the liberal peace paradigm’s tendency to promote internationally imposed values and definitions of peace and its stakeholders (Mac Ginty, 2008, 2015). Critical research instead emphasizes that “inclusivity denotes that local knowledges should (re)shape and (re)constitute peacebuilding processes.” This entails that international actors “refine or at least semi-abandon their pre-formed assumptions and perspectives” to engage in such reshaping and reconstituting (Danielsson, 2020: 1086). Nevertheless, they also highlight that not all practices of the local, which civil society claims to represent, can constructively contest the liberal script nor be complementary at all to peace. Critical peace research thus qualifies the emancipatory role of the local and cautions against essentializing the local and romanticizing the concept (Mac Ginty and Richmond, 2013).

Nevertheless, in focusing on international standards or arguing for the value of the local, current peace mediation and critical peacebuilding research both reinforce such actor distinctions (Danielsson, 2020; Hellmüller and Santschi, 2013; Paffenholz, 2015b) and assume a level of civil society independence from another (warring parties, market or state, and international). However, if civil society is as well-embedded in the local context as both strands of research claim it to be (albeit in varying degrees), civil society could reflect the divisions of the society in which it is embedded, providing varying degrees of support or resistance to greater inclusivity and peace.

Second, in general, mediation research has examined civil society’s inclusion and armed parties’ spoiling behavior separately and has under-examined the effect of the former’s inclusion in spoiling in the context of mediation. Research on spoiling has explained that conflict parties resort to arms or other spoiling behavior to be included in the peace process, to demand a separate delegation, or as leverage against their rival armed parties (Paffenholz, 2015a; Stedman, 1997; Zahar, 2010). In addition, research examines armed actors’ strategies (Hellmüller, 2019a) and the conflict situation, such as ripeness (Cantekin, 2016; Greig, 2001) and the presence/absence of a mutually hurting stalemate (Zartman, 2008). These explanations have not examined the possible role of civil society. Meanwhile, as discussed, mediation research on civil society inclusion portrays armed parties as resistors without explaining why armed groups’ resistance is particularly potent in the context of mediation.

Closely examining the interaction of both actors in the mediation process points to the structuring effect of norms particularly inherent in mediation processes. Nathan (2017) refers to these inherent standards as the mediation mandate, while Hellmüller et al. (2015) use the term “definitional norms” in that a process cannot be considered mediation in the absence of such norms. Based on interviews with mediators, such norms include the consent of the parties and protecting the right to life. These norms are considered definitional in that questions are posed to the integrity of the mediation if, for example, it forcefully puts the parties together to negotiate or if the agenda of the talks involves arms deals or the toleration of further loss of lives (Hellmüller et al., 2017). In contrast to peace enforcement and peacekeeping missions, where the third party has more authority to impose its proposed solutions and include its invited actors, peace mediation relies on the consent, especially of those who can stop the fighting throughout the process. These norms place actors with armed identities in more privileged positions than civil society. Thus, in the face of armed actors’ opposition, equal participation by unarmed actors can be insurmountable. Moreover, to distinguish themselves as superior from included unarmed factions, armed parties can highlight their armed identity, continuing violence even while participating in mediation.

As will be discussed in the case study, this article argues that the varying and conflicting affiliations within civil society, rooted in the way it developed in the context, can also make the mediation process an extension of the competing relationships within civil society and among civil society, the conflict parties, and the internationals. Thus, civil society’s fractures enable varying support or resistance to greater inclusivity within this group. Moreover, the definitional norms not only serve as the boundaries that limit mediators, but also put armed parties at an advantage. This positionality renders their resistance to greater inclusion more effective than any similar threats, such as absence, boycotts, or withdrawals, from civil society. Moreover, such normative priority can further encourage armed parties, aware of the advantage of an armed identity in the mediation process, to continue violence and other forms of spoiling to reinforce their structural advantage over civil society.

Case study: promoting civil society’s inclusion in the IGAD-led mediation process

After less than 2 years of independence from Sudan and months of heated tension among South Sudanese elites in the new government, on 15 December 2013, fighting occurred between guards loyal to the President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir Mayardit, and the former Vice President, Riek Machar Teny. These two personalities are standard-bearers of the ruling party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and belong to two of the country’s largest tribes. The fighting among politically and ethnically divided guards immediately spread among civilians throughout the capital and the country.

In the Extraordinary Session of the IGAD Heads of State and Government, 12 days after the atrocities, the IGAD leaders launched a mediation process to address the political and humanitarian crisis caused by the violence. The Heads of State viewed the crisis as a “problem of leadership failure,” and concluded that the lasting solution to the crisis should come from an inclusive dialogue involving all stakeholders.³ In the communiqué mandating the mediation, the Heads of States resolved that South Sudanese stakeholders “undertake urgent measures” for “an all inclusive dialogue” by 31 December 2013 (IGAD, 2013: 4). The intent of an “all-inclusive dialogue” was to provide a format for discussion not only for the two warring parties but also “face to face talks” for other members of South Sudanese society (IGAD, 2013: 4). While the two warring leaders, Kiir and Machar, were mentioned at the beginning of the document, Machar’s name was always followed by the terms “other parties” or “other leaders critical to bringing about peace (IGAD, 2013).” The communiqué named all these actors as “stakeholders” and ordered to begin an “unconditional dialogue with all stakeholders . . .” (IGAD, 2013).

Illustrating the article’s main argument, the IGAD-led mediation process points to the importance of the setting by which these actors exercised their power over civil society. In the first sub-section, the social setting by which civil society emerged nurtured a diverse, divided, and aligned civil society, which worked against expanding the participants and positions in the peace process detailed in the second sub-section. The second sub-section also discusses how the normative priority of mediation processes limited the mediator’s ability to promote greater inclusivity and encouraged further violence. This combination hindered realizing the level of civil society participation initially envisioned.

The development of civil society in South Sudan

South Sudan civil society has mainly come to mean formal organizations delivering services to the community or engaged in political advocacies or civil society organizations (CSOs). The revitalization of the SPLM/A under John Garang in 1993 gave a prominent role to civil society through the Cush Relief and Rehabilitation Society. However, civil society in this scenario was concentrated on humanitarian work and was considered part of the SPLM (Centre for Conflict Resolution, 2016). Civil society also united with the SPLM to campaign for a vote for independence from Sudan and build the new state.⁴ The unity of purpose affected civil society’s autonomy from the SPLM, which eventually became the government. It cultivated links and close personal relations between civil society and the movement. Many civil society leaders became members of the new Government of South Sudan and vice versa (Centre for Conflict Resolution, 2016).

In addition to the armed groups, the long-standing international humanitarian engagement also shaped the development of South Sudan’s civil society. When South Sudan was still part of Sudan, international engagement was centered on humanitarian activities under the Operation Lifeline Sudan Southern Sector. Given fragile governance structures during the violent conflict between the North and South, international donors collaborated with these formal organizations to deliver humanitarian aid to local communities. The signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the referendum stimulated donor support to the South. With it, more organizations flourished, engaged in post-conflict community building, and expanded into political advocacy work.⁵ Many of these organizations have been dubbed, “briefcase NGOs” as they were formed, driven, and sustained by the international donor community (Centre for Conflict Resolution, 2016). Like in many parts of Africa (Masunungure, 2011), the agenda and advocacies of these NGOs echo the liberal script, adopting and adapting the global development agencies’ language (Riehl, 2001).

As different civil society groups partnered with varying actors throughout the country’s history, liberal civil society is but one of the many faces of South Sudan’s civil society. Nonetheless, even those aligned with political groups are also well-versed with the liberal script. Donor organizations championing inclusivity thus cautioned to be mindful of selecting civil society representatives: “while I am all in favor of including and engaging civil society, we have to be careful with civil society in South Sudan . . ..”⁶ Another response noted that many intelligent and talented civil society leaders “speak our language and know our terminologies, but at the end of the day, who are they there for?”⁷

The lack of independence from the warring parties or the internationals is a defining attribute of South Sudan’s civil society. As one former mediation advisor described, for South Sudan civil society, “being independent is a difficult thing.” This (non-)feature was clear when respondents explained excluding the church in their definition of civil society. South Sudan churches may possess characteristics compatible with liberal peace expectations (non-political, voluntary organizations). However, “(t)he Church(es) in South Sudan (do) not consider itself as civil society and rightly so, because unlike CSOs, it has remained independent of political affiliations,” a frequent insight captured by one respondent.⁸ While acknowledging divisions within the church along ethnic and political lines, the general impression of the church as an independent institution was salient.⁹

The relatively recent working relationship with the SPLM questions civil society’s ability to formulate positions independently and serve as the third way. They may articulate broader issues beyond the power-centered interests of the warring parties. However, they have weak autonomy than the church, or their volunteer/member base is weakly separated from the warring parties. Making matters more challenging is that those not aligned with the armed parties are accused of being mouthpieces of the west, discrediting their representativeness of grassroots interests.

Including civil society in the IGAD mediation process (2013–2015)

The above divisions within civil society, combined with the normative priorities of peace mediation, fuelled resistance to greater inclusivity in three phases of the mediation process: the decision to include civil society, the selection of members of the civil society delegation, and the role of civil society in drafting the resulting agreement.

Deciding to include civil society and other actors: battle of conflict narratives

While there was an agreement among the mediation team, several civil society members, and the international community to expand the mediation, the two warring parties provided much resistance. They pushed back on the initial decision to expand the process by forwarding a bilateral conflict narrative, questioning the need for a separate civil society delegation, and threatening to withdraw from the process altogether. Either in discourse or actual violence, these acts drew from the divided nature of civil society and the armed groups’ reinforcement of their armed status to gain advantage in the mediation.

The “problem of leadership failure” and the need for an all-inclusive dialogue were not the only interpretation of the conflict prominent during the mediation’s early stages. The Government of South Sudan initially insisted that the December 2013 violence was a coup attempt and that the Vice President should be treated as a coup plotter, not a negotiator.¹⁰ As the government gradually entered the mediation, it nevertheless insisted that the conflict was between a legitimate government and a belligerent group. Thus, the conflict should be dealt with bilaterally.¹¹ In contrast, Machar’s group, the SPLM In-Opposition (SPLM-IO), openly objected to a more inclusive process when other SPLM officials formed their own delegation and did not join him.

Apart from framing the main issue as internal only to the SPLM, armed parties cited that the structure of the SPLM already covers “all levels of society” down to the local level and can represent grassroots interests.¹² Respondents from both government and SPLM-IO noted that civil society was united with SPLM during the liberation struggle until independence and should work with them instead of separately during the talks.¹³ Furthermore, Akol observed that their objection to expanding the mediation process is rooted in the power-centered mind-set that the conflict can still be won militarily, and second, in the two main warring parties’ “unwritten agreement” that “only those with guns are allowed to negotiate (Akol, 2014: 8).” Based on these premises, both parties encouraged others who wished to negotiate to join any of the two prominent parties instead of aspiring for a separate and equal negotiating team.¹⁴

The IGAD Special Envoys organized a meeting with 14 CSOs on 15–17 March 2014 based on these CSOs’ initiative to band together in January (Citizens for Peace and Justice, 2014). After the mediation informed the warring parties, the latter objected to the participating NGOs and presented their list of civil society participants. They objected to the conduct of the meeting after learning that the meeting was not open for their nomination. After the armed parties’ threats of withdrawal from the talks, the Special Envoys did not participate in the March meeting but assigned IGAD junior representatives to the dissatisfaction of several civil society participants.¹⁵ In these challenges, the face-to-face talks among all stakeholders beyond the warring parties were postponed.

Selecting civil society representatives: whose civil society?

Under threats of sanctions and after high-level visits of the international community to President Kiir, on 9 May 2014, the two warring parties signed the Agreement to Resolve the Crisis in South Sudan, which aimed at a more inclusive peace process. The agreement expanded the direct participants and agenda items compared with earlier bilateral talks. The term “stakeholders” was defined to “include the direct negotiators (the GRSS and the SPLM-IO), the SPLM leaders (former detainees), political parties, civil society, and faith-based leaders (IGAD, 2014: 1).” Furthermore, the agreement specified the plan to include “transitional governance, the permanent constitution, and any other items that concern the country’s political future and reconciliation of South Sudanese communities.”¹⁶

To resist greater inclusivity in this phase, the warring parties influenced the selection of civil society representatives to their favor through their networks in South Sudan society. The IGAD Special Envoys held a multi-stakeholder symposium on 6–7 June 2014, inviting the original 14 CSOs from the March meeting. However, on the day of the symposium, the Government chartered a plane to fly in its recommended CSOs.¹⁷ The mediation gathered these organizations and instructed them to choose representatives among themselves. One member from the original 14 organizations noted, “. . . it was the 14 of us with a charter-plane full of government-endorsed groups . . . during our deliberations we were clearly outnumbered.”¹⁸ The deliberation resulted in the newly-arrived organizations comprising civil society, women, and youth delegations to the displeasure of the original 14 and especially the SPLM-IO, which objected to all groups. The SPLM-IO reasoned that all civil society members in the symposium come from Juba and are “therefore aligned with the government” either because of their direct connections with the government or because they will be coerced to support the government once they go back to the capital. After the symposium, the SPLM-IO strongly argued for the inclusion of their recommended groups. One SPLM-IO member recalled, “we called up South Sudan individuals and groups in the areas we control and mostly in the diaspora communities . . . and named them as our civil society delegation . . . for the women’s group . . . we asked our wives to join . . .”¹⁹ With the SPLM-IO threatening withdrawal from the talks or continuing armed operations should their groups be rejected, the mediation revisited the guidelines for selecting members and accommodated these opposition-nominated groups.

After securing the continued participation of the armed groups, the mediation team pursued to recover the civil society that participated in the March meeting. Reflecting the liberal preference, one international mediation advisor explained the pursuit, “(t)he point, for the mediation, was to advance discussion of substantive issues. This meant prioritizing a more technocratic and intellectual dimension of civil society.”²⁰ Faced with political and logistical challenges, the mediation eventually accommodated the original 14, provided they chose four representatives among themselves.²¹

What eventually resulted from the selection was that civil society, women, and youth groups were allowed to participate as the armed parties, forming their own delegations and handing in their position papers. However, these delegations fragmented internally. One sub-group favored the government, while another sub-group favored the SPLM-IO. Within the civil society delegation, a third subdivision unaligned with either warring party but had close working relations with the international community. These divisions reflected the prominent fractures within South Sudan.²²

Civil society in the negotiations: divide, doubt, and intimidate

Civil society’s ties with the warring parties or international donors cultivated doubts on their independence, representativeness of the people of South Sudan and, consequently, their role in the negotiations. The warring parties also questioned civil society’s relevance in committees on government and security arrangements, citing civil society’s non-armed character and, consequently, lack of expertise and authority on these topics.

After the June symposium, the civil society delegation handed in three position papers on the same topic instead of a consolidated submission, reflecting the three sub-divisions. One respondent noted that those aligned with the government attended internal meetings of the government delegation, while those nominated by the SPLM-IO attended their meetings. The stakeholders, in effect, became extensions of the government-SPLM-IO competition, and “they reflected the government or the opposition line.”²³ With the apparent alliances between most members of the civil society delegation and the warring parties, the mediation and international community’s pressure to insist on civil society’s equal participation waned, citing that civil society “was co-opted.”²⁴

The four representatives of the original 14 CSOs found support from several donor governments and the mediation secretariat in proposing points on governance, transitional justice, women’s rights, and the youth’s role.²⁵ They were also fact-checkers to the warring parties’ claims.²⁶ While the final agreement contained some of their proposals, the warring parties objected to several CSO-proposed clauses, especially those limiting the Transitional Government of National Unity. The warring parties often accused the four as “puppets” of the international community and not representing the interests of the people of South Sudan.²⁷

In addition, the two warring parties also managed to exclude civil society in the final discussions about government institutions and force mobilization happening in the power-sharing and security arrangements committees. They argued that civil society will not directly be in government and do not have the forces to be concerned with their configuration.²⁸ One member of the civil society delegation expressed his objection to this rationale because civil society is part of the monitoring and verification missions. It works with communities that would be affected by these power-sharing and military configurations.²⁹ Civil society was also excluded from the leadership committee, the clearing house where all provisions were finalized (IGAD, 2016).

Members of the mediation highlighted the military advances and threats to resume full fighting as the boundary to their push for civil society and an inclusive agenda.³⁰ The mediation took as much of the proposed provisions from civil society but within the limits of what the warring parties in the leadership committee could agree. Moreover, respondents also observed that when civil society became more active in the talks, armed parties increasingly threatened to withdraw, escalate the fighting, or harm opposing civil society members. After civil society members debated with the conflict parties in several heated discussions, one CSO representative noted, “they told us ‘ah, you are so brave when you speak here (in Addis Ababa) but wait until you get to Juba . . . so after each round in Addis Ababa, we would stay in Nairobi first to cool things down before going to Juba.”³¹

In sessions where civil society’s recommendations were damaging to the government’s or SPLM-IO’s, the two warring parties became motivated to continue or escalate fighting to reinstate superiority over these groups. Members of the CSO delegation and the IGAD mediation team observed that gaining substantive concessions became particularly difficult when the parties gained ground on the battlefield. One civil society respondent observed, “they would be talking during the meetings and sitting together even during lunch, but they would also be on their Thuraya (satellite phones) monitoring the situation and communicating with their men on the ground.”³² Another respondent observed that one could feel it the next day if one party had militarily gained. They tend not to concede to some issues and more frequently threaten to withdraw from the process.³³

Conclusion

This article illustrated that warring parties’ resistance maximized their structural advantages vis-à-vis civil society in the conflict context and peace mediation. While one civil society group aspired to make liberal models work, there were also groups who favored one of the warring parties. Subgroups aligned with the armed parties due to relationships built from their history of working together or current operations in the areas under government or opposition control. Those that did not align with the conflict parties were discredited for their close working ties with the internationals or were issued threats to their security once they left the negotiation venue. The warring parties’ use of arms enabled them to make more potent threats to the integrity of the mediation, making their walkouts and threats to resume full fighting more debilitating for the entire mediation than the absence of civil society members excluded in several discussions and committees.

Heeding the call of critical peace research for a more nuanced approach to civil society, this research provided a brief historical account of civil society development in South Sudan that enabled a disaggregated analysis. The case showed that the international has been as much a part of shaping civil society culture in the country as South Sudanese nationals, illustrating the blurred lines between the local and international. Moreover, the article showed that civil society’s divisions and challenges were extended and reflected in the mediation process, enabling varying forms of support and resistance and ultimately hindering their envisioned constructive role.

This article furthermore illustrated the link between civil society inclusion in mediation processes and armed parties’ spoiling, which are predominantly studied separately. By illustrating how armed parties use violence in retaliation to civil society’s greater role, the article has shown that spoiling behavior is not only aimed at the mediators, at other armed parties, or based on the ripeness of the conflict, but that civil society’s inclusion can also encourage spoiling behavior. Through the definitional norms, the article explained why spoiling behavior can be reinforced particularly in mediation processes. Armed parties, aware of the structural advantage of their armed identity in mediation processes, argued for their superiority and distinguished themselves from civil society by highlighting their military capability verbally and through actual violence. Examining how these actor groups interact in the context of mediation also re-emphasizes mediation’s inherent normative limits in promoting greater inclusivity, which current studies on mediator traits, strategies, and process design options tend to underestimate.

Contrary to the policy premise that civil society’s inclusion can disincentivize the use of violence, the article showed that its inclusion could also fuel it. For policymakers, preparing and mediating within civil society are as essential as mediating within and consolidating armed groups’ delegations before the main talks. Supporting civil society’s participation would need to go beyond sponsorships for the logistical arrangements to participate and toward internal consultations, intra-civil society dialogue, and preparatory meetings. Process-design options could also include multiple and more disaggregated civil society delegations corresponding to the context and issues on the table, instead of lumping all unarmed, non-political participants under general groupings. Finally, in the face of resistance of armed parties and given mediation’s normative priorities, mediation strategies and leverage can only do so much to include civil society and expectations of their full participation can be better realized in other peacebuilding interventions designed to temper armed identities.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the respondents who participated during her Ph.D. field work, her dissertation committee, Michael Aeby, Aly Verjee, and two anonymous reviewers for enriching the empirics, guiding the argumentation, and providing integral pointers for improving the manuscript.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation under the project, “Are mediators norm entrepreneurs? [grant number 159355].”

ORCID iD

Jamie Pring

Notes

Author biography

Jamie Pring is Lecturer at the University of Basel and an incoming research fellow at the United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS). She was a Visiting Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science at Freie Universität Berlin. Her PhD examined the promotion of inclusivity in the mediation in South Sudan from 2013 to 2015. Her research topics include norm diffusion, regional organizations, and international conflict resolution. [ E-mail: jamie.pring@unibas.ch]

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