The Sudan Syndrome: State-Society Contests and The Future of Democracy After The December 2018 Revolution

Around 65 years ago when Sudan was about to gain its independence, it was described as a “bright spot in a dark continent.” Unfortunately, that optimism about Sudan could not have been more wrong. Instead, Sudan has come to be a country defined by conflicts, political instability, and development failures. To date, the country has experienced three long-reigning, dysfunctional, and autocratic military regimes interrupted by three popular uprisings (in 1964, 1986, and 2018-present). The first two led to short-lived democracies, while, as before, the demise of the last autocratic regime led to the formation of the current transitional government, entrusted with the task of preparing the country for democratic elections in 2023. However, this nascent transitional government was toppled by a palace coup on 25 October 2021 well before the much-anticipated election of 2023. This peculiar Sudanese political history came to be characterized in popular Sudanese literature as the “Sudan Syndrome.” The main research questions considered in this paper revolve around explaining this “syndrome,” drawing lessons for the current transition, and exploring how Sudan can break free from the vicious cycle that plagued its post-independence history toward the stable, prosperous, democratic state that was originally thought to be its destiny. We use the “narrow corridor” model of Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson as the main analytical framework for analyzing the phenomena and for drawing lessons for the current political transition in Sudan. Specifically, we ask three fundamental questions: how can Sudan re-enter the corridor following the recent setback in October 2021? How can the country broaden the corridor and stay in it toward a balanced and mature democratic project? Finally, how can the country engineer the national project for achieving these two objectives while accounting for both the political and economic agenda of the social contract?