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Paper short abstract:

South Sudan adopted a complex identity management system in 2011. While it promised inclusion for the citizens, the high costs deterred the majority to acquire ID cards. The civil war from December 2013 however turned the citizenship regime into an active sphere of exclusion.

Paper long abstract:

South Sudan adopted an extremely complex identity management solution following independence in 2011. The promises of the centralized, high-modernist system were plentiful: security, automation, ease, and first and foremost, inclusion. The paper looks on these promises a decade, and a brutal civil war later. Two, previously antagonistic elite classes captured the state after independence, the gun class and the salaried class. The gun class consists of military veterans of the Sudanese Civil War, who became the leaders of South Sudan overnight. The salaried class describes the educated career professionals, who sought civil servant positions in the burgeoning state administration. The two classes developed a symbiotic relationship to achieve their goals. The gun class sought to extend their political power to be able to grow their patronage networks. The salaried class wanted to increase their monthly income and other resource exploitations of the state. The biometric identity-management system offered by a European company seemed perfect for both classes. The complexity of the system allowed the military veterans to keep questions of inclusion and exclusion in their own hands, in the form of citizenship interviews. The complexity also justified the increase of salaries and the exploitation of development assistance for the salaried class. The main adversary of inclusion was the extreme costs of the documents, a price out of reach for the majority of the South Sudanese. However, the civil war and the subsequent peace deal turned the citizenship regime into an active form of exclusion and corruption.