This report focuses on precarity in Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan, each of which has experienced conflict in the recent past. With the exception of Ethiopia, they can all be described as established political markets.
The paper has five sections. The first section of the paper traces the meaning of the term precarity – a word which is often used in academic literature, but rarely defined. The second briefly examines precarity in the labour markets in the four countries considered in this paper. The third section examines the manner in which the texts of peace agreements deal with (or ignore) precarity and broader questions of exploitative political economies in these countries. The fourth section outlines some of the ways in which peace processes shape and are shaped by precarity. The final section concludes with some policy implications.
