Youth and Ethnic Movements and Their Impacts on Party Politics in ECOWAS Member States

Although they historically played a pivotal role in the fightagainst colonial rule—as they have in recent attempts to entrench multiparty democraticprocesses—the role of youth in political parties in West Africa has received less thancommensurate attention in studies on democratization. Unlike in advanced democracieswhere parties are key agents of political socialization and leadership, parties in WestAfrica are built on ethno-religious foundations. A peculiar character of highlymarginalized youth thus becomes inevitable, both in politics and decision-makingprocesses of the state. To assert themselves, the youth have also become agents ofdestabilization of the democracy they partook to build. Apart from their involvement inpolitical violence, youths are now available as unconscientious “foot soldiers” ofethnic militias and terrorist groups that are constituting increased social problems inWest Africa. In this article, we examine how parties and youth have interacted to definethe emergence and character of threat to the nascent democracies in contemporary WestAfrica. The article interrogates how the notions of “youth” and “politicalparticipation” have continued to play out in different West African countries within thecontext of the opportunities and challenges of Africa’s youth bulge on thedemocratization process. The article observes that the marginalization of West Africanyouths has been part and parcel of history only that their situation has further raisedthe stake as agent of social disorder in the absence of positive engagement in therecent times