Understanding intervention through multiplicity: protection politics in South Sudan

ABSTRACT

The margins of international order remain understudied in International Relations. This article engages with the concept of multiplicity proposed by Justin Rosenberg by tracing the mechanisms of multiplicity in justifications for intervention in South Sudan. First, I examine the potential of multiplicity and argue for the importance of maintaining an openness to the concept. Second, I apply the mechanisms of multiplicity to understand UN intervention in South Sudan. In particular, I highlight how relationships between sovereignty and intervention in South Sudan coexist, combine, and interact. Once implemented, policies echo multiple logics, but also produce new and hybrid forms of authority with significant consequences for future sovereignty politics in South Sudan and beyond.