Economic Issues in Sudan’s North-South Peace Process

This case study on Sudan is a reminder that economic factors do not necessarily need to be directly responsible for higher levels of violence to be able to contribute to the de-escalation of conflict and the initiation of a peace process. In Sudan, the presence of oil has often been simply considered a compounding factor to the main drivers of violence. But after nearly four decades of armed conflict, the prospect of oil revenues has changed the incentive structure for violence and contributed to the development of tactically informed choices favouring negotiation over the continuation of conflict. In his analysis, Achim Wennmann shows that identifying the incentive structures for violence among belligerents may be an important conceptual tool to assist mediators in making decisions as to when to engage armed groups and how to assess their possible attitudes towards a peace process.
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