24 Janaury 2026 President Kiir is an undisputed political and military strategist and tactician that history books will remember. Ivan Pavlov, the Russian physiologist, studied classical conditioning through detailed experiments with dogs and published his experimental results in 1897.
The results showed that experimental dogs salivated when fed red meat this was a natural response before conditioning. Red meat caused the dogs to salivate, which is an automatic, natural behaviour; even humans salivate when they see food while hungry. In this case, food is the unconditioned stimulus, while salivation is the unconditioned response. When a bell was rung, the bell alone did not cause the dogs to salivate. President Kiir’s firing and recycled appointments can be read through Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning framework.
Just as in the case of the dog, the appointment of a politician causes happiness and relief, like a dog’s salivation when served red meat.
The appointment is the unconditioned stimulus, while happiness and celebration are the unconditioned responses by politicians.
However, frequent firing and rehiring have created a conditioned stimulus for the political class, like Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning experiment. In Pavlov’s experiment, in addition to providing red meat, a bell was rung just before the food was given. Through repeated pairing, the dog learned to associate the bell’s sound with food.
After conditioning, the sound of the bell alone produced salivation as a learned, conditioned response. Similarly, President Kiir’s genius lies in weaponizing the repeated cycle of firing and recycling senior government officials, which creates a strategic conditioned response. Over time, sacking initially unpredictable has become psychologically associated with the possibility of reappointment.
As a result, firing now triggers anticipatory emotions such as hope, anxiety, deference, and political restraint.
These emotional responses condition politicians to remain compliant and to position themselves favourably for possible return, making compliance a plausible outcome of the conditioning process rather than a guaranteed one.
The repeated practice of recycled reappointment reinforces these conditioned expectations, stabilising a cycle of sacking, anticipation, and reappointment as a weaponised conditioned response within President Kiir’s political management toolkit.
The system disciplines behaviour not merely through punishment, but through managed uncertainty and expected appointment. This is the genius of President Kiir’s firing and recycling appointments: the political management of conditioned responses. The future is bright.
