Civil society organizations and the prevention of mass atrocities: Perspectives from south Sudan
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Author | Susan Appe,Nadia Rubaii,Kerry Whigham |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1995 |
Received: 14 December 2021
-
Revised: 4 August 2022
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Accepted: 13 August 2022
DOI: 10.1002/pad.1995
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Civil society organizations and the prevention of mass
atrocities: Perspectives from south Sudan
Susan Appe
1
|Nadia Rubaii
2†
|Kerry Whigham
2
1
Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and
Policy, University at Albany, SUNY, Albany,
New York, USA
2
Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity
Prevention and Department of Public
Administration, Binghamton University, SUNY,
Binghamton, New York, USA
Correspondence
Susan Appe, Rockefeller College of Public
Affairs and Policy, University at Albany, SUNY,
Albany, NY, USA.
Email: sappe@albany.edu
Abstract
Nowhere is the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) in development and
democratization more critical than in countries at high risk of mass atrocities. In this
article, we examine the actual and potential role of development CSOs in the pre-
vention of mass atrocities based on an analysis of 302 CSOs in South Sudan. The
article examines if and how service‐providing CSOs frame their work as contrib-
uting to the prevention of mass atrocities. The article seeks to understand how
these CSOs deliver services and articulate their work regarding the prevention of
large‐scale identity‐based violence. We aim to explore the degree to which orga-
nizations describe atrocity prevention as an intentional part of democratization
efforts. The article is situated within the larger debates about the service delivery
and civil society functions of CSOs. Specifically, we ask: To what extent do devel-
opment CSOs articulate a contribution to the prevention of mass atrocities? We
posit that the service delivery and civil society functions can be better achieved by
giving deliberate attention to an atrocity prevention perspective.
KEYWORDS
atrocity prevention, civil society function, democratization, service delivery function, south
Sudan
1
|
INTRODUCTION
Nowhere is the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) in devel-
opment and democratization more critical than in countries at high
risk of mass atrocities. Mass atrocities are the antithesis of devel-
opment and their prevention is a necessary precursor to effective
democratization, defined as “broadly distributed control over political
and economic assets, and the open flow of information”
(Korten, 1987, p. 147). In this article, we examine if and how service‐
providing CSOs frame their work as contributing to the prevention of
mass atrocities. The article seeks to understand how these CSOs
articulate their work regarding the prevention of large‐scale identity‐
based violence. We build on scholarship that has called on the field of
public administration to engage in understanding the potential role
that public administrators have in perpetrating and preventing mass
atrocities—including genocides, crimes against humanity, war crimes
and ethnic cleansing. Previously our focus has been on government
officials (Appe et al., 2021); in this paper we focus on civil society
actors, particularly those engaged in development. We seek to draw
attention to the under‐researched context of atrocity prevention by
CSOs and connect it to existing bodies of public administration and
development literature.
Our inquiry is situated within the larger debates about the ser-
vice delivery and civil society functions of CSOs, particularly in the
context of conflict‐affected settings, and it lays the groundwork for
further empirical study. Service‐providing CSOs have been criticized
for not living up to their promises to reshape societal relations be-
tween the state, the market and civil society, and for not achieving
†
Deceased author
14
-
Public Admin Dev. 2023;43:14–25.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pad© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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