Youth in Conflict and Peacebuilding

Mobilization, Reintegration and Reconciliation

A. Özerdem, S. Podder

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781137314536
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This study investigates the role of youth in peacebuilding, and addresses the failure of states and existing research to recognise youths as political actors, which can result in their contribution to peacebuilding being ignored.

1

Introduction: Combatants, Troublemakers, Peacebuilders or What?

The youth question in conflict-affected and post-conflict societies has become policy relevant for several international organizations and donor agencies working in a range of fragile environments. Technical advisors on youth based programming, social advocacy, gender focused programmes, and health, education, employment, training and livelihoods are part and parcel of the development challenge facing the international community across Asia, Africa, Latin America, South Asia and the Middle East. The focus on youth stems largely from the demographic reality of youthful populations voicing their demands through both violent and non-violent means. The events across the Arab world and in Ukraine recently present important issues that face young people in today’s complex modern environments. To be a young person is not an easy thing anymore. Whether it is the United Kingdom, the United States of America, China, India, Turkey, Palestine, or in Nigeria, young people are facing challenges with respect to education, employment, housing, identity, political participation and social integration. But who are youth? Are they a homogeneous category with similar needs, or do they represent wide differences based on class, gender, ethnicity, religion and other forms of group specific affiliation?

Defining youth

For much of human social interaction, the category called ‘youth’ has been perceived as a historically constructed social category, a relational concept, and as a group of actors that is far from homogeneous. A myriad set of factors make childhood and youth highly heterogeneous categories in terms of gender, class, race, ethnicity, political position as well as age. They also have multi-faceted roles. Youth can be heroes as well as victims, saviours and courageous in the midst of crisis, as well as criminals in the shantytowns and military entrepreneurs in the war zones. Yet, as a category, youth are approached as a fixed group or demographic cohort (Aguilar, 2007; Kurimoto and Simonse, 1998).

However by its very constitution, the term youth presents a relational concept drawing on the existence of difference types of groups and forces of sociality. In Durham’s (2004) phrase, youth are ‘social shifters’ situated in a dynamic context. They inhabit a social landscape of power, knowledge, rights, and cultural notions of agency and personhood, where youth can become an emerging influence as well as be submerged by other types of power. In this sense, youth are people in the process of becoming rather than being. They stand on contested ground concerning what constitutes ‘youth’ in society: are they an age group, a social category, a political group or ‘in-betweeners’ between children and adults?

In the current discourse, it is possible to locate three dominant types of approaches to defining youth. First is the ‘age-defined perspective’. Drawing on western sociological discourses on youth-hood, that is the idea of single, gender-equal age of maturity, youth are defined as ‘young people transitioning between puberty and parenthood’ (Zarrett and Eccles, 2006). The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has defined ‘youth’ as the age between 15 and 24. However there is no single agreed definition. For example, the lowest age range for youth is 12 in Jordan and the upper range is 35 in a number of African countries including Sierra Leone, Liberia and Rwanda. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) use the term ‘adolescent’ for those aged 10–19, youth for those 15–24 and young people for those 10–24. There is also a degree of overlap between international definition of youth and children, with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) defining a child as everyone under the age of 18 unless the law of a particular country is applicable to the child, in which case adulthood is attained earlier (Hilker and Fraser, 2009: 9). The age-defined approach is largely inconsistent with an individualistic understanding of the development of youth across diverse social contexts. To address this nuance, the World Youth Report (2005) defines ‘youth’ as ‘an important period of physical, mental and social maturation, where young people are actively forming identities and determining acceptable roles for themselves within their community and society as a whole’ (World Youth Report, 2005: 150).

Secondly, youth are defined as a social construct. In this approach, youth are socially situated and culturally constructed in relation to other socio-generational groups such as children, adults and the elderly. Here, ‘youth’ are characterized according to certain specific social attributes that differentiate them from other groups in society with respect to age, authority, social position, power, ability, rights, dependence/independence, knowledge and responsibilities (Durham, 2004: 593). Given its links with status and behaviour the socio-cultural definition of youth is largely contextually dependent and less defined by age (De Waal and Argenti, 2002).

Thirdly, youth are defined from a physiological perspective. They are regarded as representing a transitional stage in life between childhood and adulthood. Given that people from diverse contexts employ the term youth differently, as a concept there is an inherent fluidness and ambiguity that characterizes the term. Cultural markers such as rites of passage, marriage, childbirth, land ownership or ritual/spiritual initiation can be more powerful than physiological and cognitive characteristics. For example, in Africa the chief meaning of youth is dependence or being kept, it underlines reliance or dependence on others or an elder for food, shelter and clothing (Hansen, 2008: 102–103). The African Charter on Youth (2006) and the Youth Policy of the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) defines youth beyond the 24 year cut-off to address the late maturation and transition processes that most African youth face.

In sum, the concept of youth is transient and contested at best. It is poised carefully on the threshold between childhood and adulthood and defined by social, cultural and physical characteristics that evolve to define each phase. In essence, ‘youth-hood’ is a period of progressive maturation towards assuming responsibility for economic, personal, institutional, political and social processes and the management of interpersonal relations through careful navigation of social dynamics (UN World Youth Report, 2003). The definitions of youth are therefore relative to the construction of youth identity as a social rank that is linked to the evolving patterns of entitlement and social status (Ismail et al., 2009: 22).

Youth, peace and conflict

The UN World Population Prospects statistics (2012) estimates that there are 1.3 billion 15–24 year olds in the world and nearly one billion live in developing countries (UN, 2013). Nine out of ten youths within that age range live in developing countries where conflict is more likely to have taken place. The World Bank predicts that demographically people below 25 years will grow to three billion in 2015 (www.iywg.org). This is a substantial human capital pool that must be engaged and developed in ways that can benefit different spheres of world development (IYWG, 2012). In the context of demographic realities, the potential of youth for change and positive action is the subject of a growing research agenda. The recent wave of social upheaval in the Arab Middle East provides a strong basis for refining contemporary strategies of youth-related development. It also urges fresh perspectives on the role of youth in conflict and peacebuilding.

The main schools of thought on youth, peace and conflict cut across disciplinary boundaries in politics, international relations, sociology, criminology, anthropology and in conflict and peace studies. In the discipline of international relations, academic interest in children and youth stems’ from three sub-disciplines. First is the role of youth as political actors through their participation in, or resistance to, democratic electoral politics, second is their role as conflict actors and finally, the role of youth in peacebuilding (Brocklehurst, 2006; Watson, 2006; 2007). In most countries youth are political actors, youth mobilization for violent political party-related violence during recent elections in Africa (Kenya, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia) and in parts of Asia (India) underlines the political nature of youth (Nugent, 2005; Kagwanja, 2006).

Youth as a conceptual category are ‘othered’ in the discourse on conflict. They are created as potentially dangerous ‘subjects’ and policy approaches often regard them as ‘a problem’. A leading theorist on the role of youth in political violence, Jack A. Goldstone, argues that youth have played a prominent role in political violence from the English Revolution to the Revolutions of 1848, and that the existence of a youth bulge has historically been associated with times of political crisis (Goldstone, 1991: 2001). Male youth in the age group 16–30 have been observed as the main protagonists of criminal violence (Neapolitan, 1997; Neumayer, 2003) and political violence (Mesquida and Wiener, 1996; Elbadawi and Sambanis, 2000). In a recent Department for International Development (DFID) sponsored paper exploring the interconnectedness between youth, jobs and growth has also underlined the connections between youth exclusion, fragile states and conflict (Hilker and Fraser, 2009).

Drawing from this emphasis, much writing on youth and conflict tends to be overly negative. It focuses on the dangers posed by disaffected youth as is evident in the negative connotations of the ‘youth bulge’ or ‘at risk youth’ (Urdal, 2006). The presence of large youth cohorts is also seen as increasing a country’s susceptibility to political violence and crime. This position is well supported in both the ‘greed’ and ‘grievance’ approaches to civil war onset (Collier, 2000; Collier and Hoeffler, 2004). The criminology literature offers developmental reasons why adolescent are often more susceptible to violent action due to differences in their biological, social and psychological developmental stages (Pitts, 2012). Recent literature on youth in post-conflict societies however marks a shift in thinking about youth. It underlines the agency perspective, and acknowledges the importance of making the connection between youth and peacebuilding for transforming a predominantly negative discourse on the role of youth in societies recovering from conflict (Boyden, 2003; Brett and Specht, 2004; Boyden, 2007; McEvoy-Levy, 2006; Wessells, 2006; Özerdem and Podder, 2011; Sommers, 2012).

Post-modern conceptualizations of youth situate them as actors in the fields of power, knowledge and rights. Notions of agency and personhood privilege the actions of people exercised through the various and contradictory discourses through which they are constituted. It lauds the ability to author a positioned self or person at particular moments or encounters (Durham, 1998). From a post-modern perspective, youth are seen as a social shifter (Silverstein, 1976; Durham, 1998). They offer a window for understanding broader socio-political and economic transformations in developing societies. From a post-colonial perspective, youth offer an entry point for unravelling the ways in which processes of change involve people’s agency. By examining the ways in which youth shape these processes and are not passive recipients or uninvolved actors in fluid social contexts, critical approaches privilege the role of youth as important players in societies that are in flux. These societies are undergoing a revision of existing communitarian models, structures of authority, gerontocracy and gender relations and present evolving social relationships and patterns of interaction (Honwana and De Boeck, 2005: 1).

The positioning of youth in society has a bearing on their leadership potential and their possible role in peacebuilding. The tension between young and old has been one of the key features of inter-generational shift pertaining to the control over power, resources and people. The tension lies in the palpable youth impatience, their desire to strive for, and willingness to be seen as responsible and capable and the structural barriers to their social mobility. Independence from others and responsibility for others, such as taking care of a family or household, these can be seen as defining markers or pre-requisites of social adulthood. These continue to be difficult for youth in most developing country contexts in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In this sense, dependency, exclusion and social or political marginalization become prominent sources of social contest. At the same time, types and forms of exclusion, marginalization and lack of integration vary across different cultural contexts.

Marginalized youth of post-colonial Africa have an unpromising political role. There is very little that youth have been able to learn especially in the form of technical knowledge and formal education. They remain marginal to a system where elders and traditional power holds have aggrandized power, knowledge and access to formal education and employment (O’Brien, 1996). Due to their imperceptible existence on the fringes of the political mainstream, marked by the futility of peaceful politics, the notion of rightful entry into serious politics expresses itself through youth violence (Hansen, 2005). Riot and looting, crime can be taken as important symbolic expressions of youth’s contention (Bayart, 1992: 17; Argenti, 2001). Marginalized youth are also those mobilized as child soldiers, vandals and hooligans in the conflicts across much of post-colonial Africa.

In Asia, youth exclusion is different. It can be rooted in caste-based inequalities or a product of colonial patterns of power and resource distribution. In developed countries, economic uncertainties and exposure to new social technologies present new forms of exclusion and lack of integration in the nation concept. Religion, radicalization and processes of mobilization for political, economic and social violence presents other types of exclusion, marginalization and violence that can be observed in the inner city gangs and drugs-related violence in the Americas. These dimensions of exclusion, marginalization and their links to violence, has resulted in youth being typified as breakers and troublemakers. For example, the literature on African youth explores their ambiguous social roles as couched between dualities of identity and potential: ‘vanguards or vandals’ ‘makers or breakers’ (O’Brien, 1996; Abbink and van Kessel, 2005; Honwana and de Boeck, 2005; Rosen, 2005; Christiansen et al., 2006; Kagwanja, 2006; Bay and Donham, 2007).

Children and youth in Africa and elsewhere have remained ‘silent others’, voiceless enfant terribles (Caputo, 1995; Gottlieb, 2000), they are construed from the outside and from above as a problem or lost generation (O’Brien, 1996). Their involvement in conflicts, riots, rebellion and resistance has given them both power and potential, but one which is characterized as marginal, subjected. Exclusion, violence and oppression punctuate public perceptions of young people’s lives in an evolving social space marked by contestation and hierarchy.

Recent scholarship in the field of peace studies emphasizes the positive roles that youth can potentially play in peacebuilding, development and community recovery. They also challenge the stereotypical roles assigned to male youth as prone to violence and destruction. Such a narrative privilege feminist perspectives about gendered roles in conflict; and highlight the choices and decisions that guide young people’s ability to navigate a complex social landscape (Podder, 2013; Denov, 2011; Borer et al., 2006). Post-colonial and critical schools of thought argue that although youth (both men and women) are agents of violence in a wide range of contexts, the motivation for their engagement in violence can be both universal as well as context specific (Argenti and Schramm, 2012).

Despite this scholarly attention to the different facets of young people’s position and participation in conflict-affected societies, a number of problematic assumptions about the role, position, and contribution of youth appear to plague thinking among national and international elites driving recovery efforts within societies in transition. The majority of national and international policy pronouncements or security-related programmes in post-conflict and fragile contexts reflect a polarized discourse. They vacillate between the two extremes of ‘infantilizing’ and ‘demonizing’ youth. On the one hand, youth are viewed as vulnerable, powerless and in need of protection. On the other, they are feared as dangerous, violent, apathetic and as threats to security. Youth are subjected to stereotypical images of being angry, drugged and violent and as a threat (requiring interventions for their prevention). This applies especially to ex-combatant youth.

Assumptions about youth’s innate ability for unleashing violence are closely aligned with broader thinking on new wars and new Barbarism literature (Kaldor, 1999; Kaplan, 2002) that have been used to explain recent conflicts in Africa as different from those previous. By advancing youth as objects of difficulty and fear, of abnormal tendencies and inclinations, policy makers have encouraged the ‘youth as a risk’ mind-frame in programmes targeting post-conflict recovery. At the other extreme, youth are gendered and infantilized (categorized as ‘at risk’), through labels such as ‘teenage mothers’, ‘sex slaves’ and ‘child soldiers’. These labels seek to represent varying degrees of vulnerability (requiring protection) and therefore advance interventions to secure young people from ‘risks’.

Dijk et al. (2011: 1–3) argue that there has been a growing dispensation of donor funding, relief programmes and international aid that have made ‘youth’ the major beneficiary. Youth have become a new development target; NGO activities and their influence on local politics have influenced the manner in which the youth came to be recognized as a category for intervention. These policies have reinforced the ideology of youth insecurity. The result has been greater exclusion rather than positive integration of young people into cohesive communities. In a recent review of constructions of youth in United Nations and World Bank youth policies, Pratley (2011) argues that Yvonne Kempner’ research on youth organizations illustrates how the theoretical frameworks that lie behind youth programmes impact on their success in achieving effective youth development. Kempner argues in favour of the need to approach programming objectives from a holistic perspective, one that involves a rights-based approach, an economic approach and a socio-political approach to youth policy. Schwartz (2010) in her study on youth as agents of change in post-conflict reconstruction suggests that, protection efforts do not empower youth to take part in community development. Identity constructions influencing how youth are approached and framed can influence the direction of international programmes and intervention design.

The deluge of practical work with youth in fragile environments deserves further critical inquiry primarily because the literature on the potential of youth in peacebuilding remains relatively thin. Barring ad hoc observations about the potential of youth as peacebuilders or as a powerful peace constituency, very little analytical work exists on explaining the mechanisms through which this potential can be operationalized. Answers to the possible power and potential of youth in a particular context are missing. This lack of focused research on the role of youth in both conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction literature presents a significant theoretical gap and suggests a serious deficiency in our understanding of the processes whereby societies emerge from violent conflict. This, in turn, raises questions about our under...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Introduction: Combatants, Troublemakers, Peacebuilders or What?
• 2  Processes of Mobilization
• 3  Experiences of Reintegration
• 4  Reconciliation Challenges
• 5  Liberia
• 6  Mindanao
• 7  The Positive Contributions of Youth to Peacebuilding
• 8  Conclusions: Youth and Peacebuilding Outcomes
• Notes
• References
• Index