Publication

This paper examines Sudan’s politics in the context of its natural resources, resistance movements, and peripheries. State formation and the apparent inability of the state to include disgruntled peripheries in decision-making processes are the root cause of countless political crises. Sudan’s history of peripheral struggles for access to local-level subsistence resources and the two north–south civil wars are examples of multiple interlocking conflicts that shaped the country’s politics in the 20th century. Marginalization and the economic neglect of peripheral regions formed the bedrock of Sudan’s internal conflicts. The author contends that both Northern and Southern Sudan will have to contend with these challenges after the South’s independence.