Uncivil Students: The Militarization of Student Civil Society as a Threat to Democracy

In recent years, research on civil society has evolved from its initial craze to a soberer approach that seeks to understand why civil society sometimes goes ‘bad’.

This paradigmatic shift has, however, largely failed to make an impact on the study of student civil society organizations (SCSOs)–often seen as a pillar of progressive social movements. In fact, there is a strong tendency amongst scholars to turn a blind eye to the violent agency of students. This is problematic.

Not only does the militarization of SCSOs risk undermining student organizations’ ability to function as protest brokers–forging pro-democracy alliances with other CSOs–but also foster a new generation of leaders who use violence as a tool for political contestation. There is currently a lack of studies investigating why SCSOs sometimes turn violent.

The purpose of this project is therefore to explain why SCSO-organized violence is more common at some universities, than others?

We propose that SCSO-violence is the result of interactions between economic vulnerability, patrimonial relationships, and militarized masculinities.

To address the question at hand we will–based on in-depth fieldwork and social network analysis–systematically compare and explain variations in SCSO-violence at four African universities: University of Liberia and Cuttington University (in Liberia) and Fourah Bay College and University of Makeni (in Sierra Leone).