Paper short abstract:

This paper shows how legitimation strategies by different South Sudanese insurgents induced diverging degrees of external support from foreign governments. This has had profound consequences for how the South Sudanese state came into being, and how its future workings are currently being contested.

Paper long abstract:

For insurgents, engaging in international diplomacy is vital to achieve their objectives, ranging from securing financial assistance to realising aspirations for independent statehood. In their diplomatic engagements, rebels use various legitimation strategies to influence foreign governments, such as the organisation of official visits to rebel-held territories and setting up diplomatic representations abroad. The external support generated by these legitimation strategies varies greatly. In some cases, insurgent legitimation efforts are disregarded, while in other cases they induce political recognition and military aid from other states. It remains largely unknown however, why and under what conditions insurgent legitimation strategies induce external support from foreign governments. To address this puzzle the paper analyses how different South Sudanese rebel groups have used legitimation strategies to acquire external support during the second Sudanese civil war (1983-2005) and the South Sudanese civil war (2013-2020). It compares the main faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) that was led by John Garang and later by Salva Kiir, the faction loyal to Riek Machar, and the National Salvation Front led by Thomas Cirillo. The paper demonstrates how the state of South Sudan came into being through rebel diplomacy, and how contemporary South Sudanese insurgents are trying to reconfigure the future of the South Sudanese state through old and new legitimation strategies. The paper’s findings challenge conventional wisdom about rebels as passive proxies, and deepen the understanding of civil war dynamics, state formation processes, and the international politics of insurgency in the Horn of Africa.