Building the Republic of Letters: Graduate Education, the University of Juba, and the Knowledge Infrastructure of Post-Conflict State Building

Building the Republic of Letters: Graduate Education, the University of Juba, and the Knowledge Infrastructure of Post-Conflict State Building examines the political economy of constructing a university system capable of producing developmental knowledge while resisting capture by patronage, conflict, and donor-driven narrowing. Centering South Sudan without treating it as exceptional, the study situates the case within broader African and global debates in higher education and development, post-conflict education, and the sociology of intellectual fields. It advances the concept of knowledge infrastructure statebuilding to explain how formal norms, institutional design, and struggles over authority become fused in shaping higher education systems. Drawing on institutional history of the University of Juba (1977–2024); analysis of curriculum and governance documents; interviews with faculty, graduate students, ministry officials, and donor advisors; comparative analysis of university–state relations in post-conflict Rwanda, Liberia, and Mozambique; and ethnographic observation of graduate governance, the study develops three linked propositions. First, higher education functions as critical institutional infrastructure for statebuilding rather than a peripheral social sector. Second, university autonomy and curriculum design are central arenas of political contestation. Third, graduate training plays a pivotal role in shaping trajectories of developmental and democratic recovery. The analysis addresses the central puzzle of how the University of Juba has navigated competing pressures: state demands for politically loyal graduates, donor priorities for technically trained professionals, and the institution’s own claims to intellectual independence. It shows that institut