CIAO DATE: 05/02

For a State of Peace: Conflict and the Future of Democracy in Sudan

Abdelwahab El-Affendi

Centre for the Study of Democracy
University of Westminster

2002

Table of Contents

Preface
1. Sudan: Basic Facts
2. Civility, Civil Society, and the Dilemmas of State-Building
3. The Quest for the "State of Peace"
4. The Evolution of the Sudanese State
5. The International Dimension
6. The State and Levels of Conflict
7. The State and Conflict Resolution
8. Religion and the State
9. Unity and Its Alternatives
10. The Challenge of Democratisation

Conclusion
Notes

Preface

Sudan's problems are many and complex. They include a longrunning civil war; deep religious divisions and disputes; and economic decline, widespread poverty, and recurrent famines and other natural disasters. The key symptoms of the "Sudanese problem" are civil conflict, the periodic collapse of democracy, and dictatorship.

The other face of the collapse of democratic systems (three times since independence in 1956) is the tenacity with which democracy is restored and defended. Sudan remains unique in that it has succeeded not once, but twice, in restoring democracy by the sheer weight of "people's power" — long before this term was popularised by the 1986 revolution in the Philippines. In October 1964 and again in April 1985, military regimes, faced with an overwhelming expression of popular resentment, collapsed and handed over power to civilian governments. Yet Khartoum's democratic Springs have always been brief: elected governments have lasted an average of three years. This paradox — a yearning for democracy and a failure to keep it — is the central question with which these pages are concerned.

I am indebted to a number of institutions and individuals for invaluable help with this work. In particular I want to thank the Christian Michelsen Institute for Development Studies and Human Rights in Bergen, Norway, and its director, Dr. Gunnar Sørbø, for their assistance during my stay in Bergen. I also want to acknowledge the support of the Research and Writing Initiative of the Program on Global Security and Sustainability of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which made it possible to complete this work.

Full Text (PDF format, 164k)

Endnotes

Note *: Abdelwahab El-Affendi is a Senior Research Fellow at CSD and coordinator of the Project on Democracy in the Muslim World. Back.