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Paper short abstract:

To promote national unity and development, African countries introduced youth service programmes. Using in-depth interviews and surveys, our paper interrogates the extent to which Ghana's National Service Scheme (NSS) - one of the oldest in Africa - contributes to national unity and development.

Paper long abstract:

From the 1960s, many African countries have introduced a range of measures and policies aimed at strengthening national unity and integration. One of the most common policies in this respect was the introduction of national service programmes. Despite the fact that many African countries currently have an active national service programme of some sort, which often cost a significant amount of public money, almost no research has been conducted on assessing the relevance of these programmes for promoting national unity or achieving some other developmental or political objective in contemporary Africa. Our paper addresses this issue head-on by analysing the impact and relevance of Ghana's National Service Scheme (NSS); i.e. one of the oldest and largest programmes on the continent. We have used a mixed-method approach to data collection, which consisted of conducting 50 semi-structured interviews with Ghanaian politicians and NSS officials as well as conducting an online perceptions survey among 1,374 recent participants in the NSS programme. The main finding of our analysis was that both policymakers and participants considered the NSS programme to still be very relevant for Ghana, but not necessarily for the reasons for which the NSS was established in 1973.

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Paper short abstract:

The paper looks at the development and empowerment of rural youth in Zimbabwe, focusing on Mhondoro Ngezi District. It is hinged on the mentality that youth development and empowerment is influenced by many factors, from the administrative ones to youths' own urgency.

Paper long abstract:

This paper looks at the relationship between rural youth development and empowerment focusing on Mhondoro Ngezi District in Zimbabwe. Youth development has always been the main aim of Zimbabwe's development programmes since attaining independence. Youth development and empowerment should be understood within the context of community development which started during the colonial period. The decades of 1980s and 1990s, branded as the 'lost decades' were years which saw youth policies centred on advancement and promotion of ZANU (PF's) agenda and ideology to perpetrate one party state in order to protect its political hegemony. The youths were used to coerce the masses to attend ZANU (PF)) rallies and meetings in 1985. This was easy since there was a blurred line between national policies and ZANU (PF) policies. The era of 1990s was a neo-liberal stage saw the youth both in rural and urban areas suffer the most due to loss of employment, employment opportunities and stiff competition to establish income generating projects or entrepreneurial establishments. Indigenisation process began in 2000, reversing the 1990s policies. The 'Youth Brigades', reminiscent of the 1980s, and this time referring to youths as 'graduates' of the National Youth Service Programme were back in force. It was during this period when indigenisation policies became the rhetoric of rural politics and development trajectories.

KEY WORDS: Youth, Development and Community, Empowerment, Entrepreneurship, Poverty

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Paper short abstract:

Since 2015, south african students are regularly on strike. They reject the colonial context at university and fees increase. They have use digital tools to get organized but demonstrations, occupations, etc. are used too, reflecting various and often conflicting conceptions of politics.

Paper long abstract:

Since 2015, south african campuses have been regularly blocked by students protesting against the colonial context at university, rejecting fees increases and even arguing for a free university. The movements hashtags: #Rhodes must fall and #Fees must fall which popularized them testify for the importance of digital tools in those mobilizations. Nevertheless, demonstrations, debates, occupations, memoranda have been used too. The mobilization also testified the creation of specific organizations on the grounds and the use of a specific theorization of politics such as black consciousness and reference to the French psychiatrist and activist Franz Fanon thinking have been common too. The paper will examine how those various ways of voicing their calls often reflect conflicting conceptions of politics amongst the students, showing the need to go beyond the hashtags in order to understand how south Africa youth intends to act in the public sphere. The paper is based on a careful review of media and existing literature on the south African students strikes as well as an exploratory research conducted in august 2016 with students of the university "currently known as Rhodes" in Grahamstown. Many of them belong to the Black Student Movement (BSM) which was created in 2015, during the strike. Their politics rely on fanonian and bikoist conceptions and they contest both the centrality of digital use in their mobilization and alternative uses of Biko's and Fanon's views in the movements.

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Paper short abstract:

Youth leaders in West Africa successfully mobilized for nonviolent action against presidential term amendments. The examples of the Senegalese and Burkinabe movements illustrate under which perceived conditions leaders and activists chose non-violent resistance despite violent repression.

Paper long abstract:

Over the last years, presidents in several African states tried to extend their constitutional term limit. The announcement of the presidents to run for another term led to broad mobilizations. In Burundi the protests were repressed by national security forces and escalated into a civil war, whereas in West Africa those movements resisted successfully non-violently, understood in reference to Schock (2003). Y'en a marre in Senegal and Balai citoyen in Burkina Faso are impressive examples of youth-led movements that combined classical street demonstrations with creative poetry guerilla within the urban and digital protest space. In both cases the protest stayed non-violent despite repressive and violent counteractions of the police and the military.

This leads to the empirical puzzle of how protest movements are able to mobilize the masses for non-violent resistance and secondly, under which perceived conditions movement leaders decide for which forms of action.

The aim of this article is figure out which (perceived) contextual shifts, processes, and actors influence the proceeding of contentious collective actions. I argue that the perceptions and following decisions at those turning points of movement leaders, activists, politicians, and security forces are decisive for the escalation of non-violent resistance.

The article mainly based on semi-structured interviews conducted in Berlin, Dakar and in Ouagadougou as well as on protest event duration statistics based on the Social Conflict Analysis Database (SCAD). Furthermore national media coverages by archive research, international newspapers, and collected grey literature published by the movements themselves helped to gain more insights in their tactics.

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Paper short abstract:

This research aims to show the opinion and discussions generated in new media and social media platforms regarding the forthcoming Presidential Election in Kenya and the issues raised surrounding it. The data is being collected through the software NodeXL.

Paper long abstract:

Social media and new media have become a relevant issue in Kenya in terms of communication and sharing information. According to the Communication Authority of Kenya, 89.2% of Kenyans have access to mobile and 87% have access to Internet. Moreover, Kenya is one of the most active countries of Africa in Twitter and Facebook according to several surveys. In addition, some research have showed that Kenyans have been using social media platforms as a channel to discuss the current political affairs and political issues during electoral periods.

The forthcoming Presidential Election in Kenya is due in August 2017. In the last months there have been several controversial episodes regarding the election such as the election commission nominees, the electronic voting system, composition of the opposition political party or the registration process to vote. Kenyans are using social media platforms as channels to discuss these political affairs and express their opinion about them.

This paper presents the state of Kenyan public opinion in new media and social media platforms concerning the vote and the issues surrounding it that are happening during the months leading to the election. The research is collecting data through software NodeXL, a software program to measure and track social media and Internet conversations based on the Network Theory and the relationship between people and their links and nodes among them. Furthermore, the research shows the networks and the type of conversation generated for each topic analyzed.

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Paper short abstract:

A study of the radical South African 'Fallist' student movement in its operation at Witwatersrand University, South Africa, from a democratic theory perspective.

Paper long abstract:

The 'Fallist' movement roiling South African universities claims or implies that it is introducing a higher form of democracy, based on mass participation and the refusal of leadership and representation, into the university setting. However it is not the only actor in the current university conflict making democratic and representational claims. This paper critically explores Fallism's democratic theory and practice by way of a University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) case study, and specifically by comparing Fallism as a democratic exercise in the Wits context to four other putatively democratic exercises: electoral democracy as embodied in student council elections; a 2015 student petition in favour of resuming classes; the Vice Chancellor's 2016 'poll' of student and staff opinion; and an abortive 'university assembly.' What theory of democracy are these exercises premised upon? Who do their key actors claim to represent, and on what basis? What is their understanding of democracy's purpose? What are their theories of politics and of democratic communication? By placing Fallism in this kind of institutional and process comparison, I hope to illuminate the limits of Fallism's implicit conceptions of direct and participatory democracy and assist in developing new ways of assessing democratic quality. The paper is an exercise in democratic theory, entailing both empirical and normative analysis.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the leadership styles and structures of the Congolese non-violent youth movement LUCHA

Paper long abstract:

In 2012, a small youth-led movement calling itself LUCHA emerged. The ground, inspired by similar movements in Africa, stated that it sought to hold the government to account through non-violent means. Today, LUCHA has become one of the most prominent pro-democracy movements in the DRC, spreading to other cities through the country. Drawing on ongoing research carried out with LUCHA members and young activists in the DRC this paper examines the leadership styles adopted by LUCHA and the manner in which it has influenced Congolese politics. In particular it examines how LUCHA has utilised social media both as a means of organizing activism and gaining international support for their cause.

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Paper short abstract:

This article examines youths' inclusion and exclusion before and after elections respectively and implication on violence in Nigeria.

Paper long abstract:

One of the major scenarios in the political landscape of Nigeria and some other parts of Africa is the dimension of youths' inclusion and exclusion before and after election campaigns respectively. The usual norm over the years is that prior to elections, youths are recognized as important for successful election and discarded when elections are over. Thus, promises made by political elites for the youths while engaging them during election are not fulfilled and all the hopes and dreams of these youngsters in living a better life through participatory governance are dashed as politicians move on with their lives having 'used' the youths for their selfish motives. Youths in recent times have, however expressed their disappointments and frustrations through violence and other means. This article takes a critical look at the dimensions of how young ones are often used and dumped within political spaces and implications on violence. The paper makes recommendations on how youths' potentials within the continent can be properly harnessed and developed for the benefits of Nigerian youths and the continent as a whole.