Why Young People Fight in Africa's Civil Wars. The Case of the Sierra Leone Civil War

Essay from the year 2021 in the subject Politics - Region: Africa, grade: 66, Oxford University, language: English, abstract: This essay focuses on both local and individual context to combine the arguments on the patrimonial state crisis leading to socio-economic marginalisation of young people, and Vigh's (2006) concept of social navigation to understand why young people fight in Africa's civil wars. Using the Sierra Leone civil war as a case study, this essay argues that the pre-war socio-economic crisis suffered by young people as a result of the failures of the patrimonial state to honour its promises to young people remains a significant factor in influencing young people's decision to fight in civil wars. The essay further argues that once a civil war begins, other young people are drawn to fight because of their quest to navigate the murky environment of war as active agents bent on improving their life chances for survival by taking advantage of the economic and social opportunities that come with wielding a gun as a combatant.