Title: On the State of Business: Trade, Entrepreneurship and Real Economic Governance in South Sudan

Description: This research studies the relationship between entrepreneurship, cross-border trade networks and re-migration with regard to the emergence of the institutional arrangements of the state in the novel Republic of South Sudan. The project entails four case studies that are currently being written into four academic publications.

The research project takes place within the framework of the IS Academy on Human Security in Fragile States and comprises four case studies: The first case study explores the disparate effects of different types of cross-border trade networks on the practical norms of taxation at several international border crossings; the second case study scrutinizes the role of the state official as ‘institutional bricoleur’ in a complex and fragmented institutional arena of economic governance; the third case study looks at how returnee diaspora entrepreneurs in Juba acquire the legitimacy to become involved in government procurement processes, and the last case study critically examines the local realities of what is becoming the flagship of novel fragile states approaches in policy and practice: joint social enterprise ventures between international firms and local businesses.

Supervisors: Dorothea Hilhorst, Dr Kristof Titeca

Key Publications:

• On the State of Business: Trade, Entrepreneurship and Real Economic Governance in South Sudan. PhD Thesis (2014). Wageningen University.
• RESEARCH BRIEF #5 South Sudan One Year On: a Social Understanding of the Country’s Economic Crisis (Rens Twijnstra, 2012) (3,11 mb)
• RESEARCH BRIEF #1 ‘Reaspora’ entrepreneurs in South Sudan (Rens Twijnstra, 2011) (247,79 kb)

More information: This PhD research was part of the project: Entrepreneurship, Cross-border Trade Networks and Re-migration in South Sudan, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Project page can be found here.

Current information: https://www.linkedin.com/in/twijnstra/