Age and Political Participation in Africa’s Electoral Regimes

ABSTRACT

This article examines the relationship between age and four types of political participation. Previous research has examined the age-participation nexus in the context of established democracies. In contrast, few studies have been devoted to assessing age differences in other contexts, particularly those of Africa, where the meaning of age and age groups could be different than in industrialised democracies. We argued in Africa that age's effect on political participation would vary depending on the country and across different forms of political participation. Analysing Afrobarometer survey data for 34 African countries, we find that the relationship between age and three forms of participation (voting, contacting and collective action) is curvilinear, with younger and older people less likely to participate. While for protest participation, the relationship between age and participation is linear, with protest decreasing with age. Next, we uncover that the countries’ policy formulation, implementation and electoral integrity affect the relationship between age and political participation. In contrast, breaking down the analysis into regional subsamples (West, Central, East, Southern, and North Africa), we observe no patterns of regional differences concerning political participation.

KEYWORDS:

• Age
• voting
• collective action
• contacting
• protest

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This is obvious as Western democracies had by far the most extensive history with democracy and competitive elections.

2 https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-age (Accessed, 2022-05-12).

3 For instance, university students initiated a nationwide protest in Malawi that ended one-party rule in 1992. In Zambia, student protests ultimately culminated with Kenneth Kaunda's holding multiparty elections in 1991. In Ghana, young people were instrumental in fighting for independence by mobilising support around Kwame Nkrumah's Convention People's Party (CPP). Relatedly, secondary school students were at the forefront of the Soweto uprising against the apartheid policies in South Africa.

4 In this article, we use the terms collective and communal activity interchangeable as it involves citizens working with a group in a community for a particular course or purpose.

5 Communal activities are those activities that allow citizens to work together on a common interest. In most instances, they are used as tools for voicing grievances and drawing attention to issues often ignored by the political elites

6 We thank a reviewer for helping us make more clear what age means.

7 For one, we contend that the country's economic development is often contingent on democratic governance. For instance, corruption which is very widespread in Africa, can be a significant barrier to economic growth and development. But even so, there seems to be little or no variation in key economic indicators such as income inequality and per capita GDP across the African countries that form the focus of this study, at least for the period we cover. In addition, Bratton (1999) argues that institutional context seems more important than economic or cultural aspects.

8 Dawson (2014) described this waithood period as the widening gap between aspirations and lived realities, which is emphasised by the sense that some people get richer at the expense of those at the bottom of society. The implication is that waiting represents the lived reality of being unable to attain markers of adulthood and respectability at the individual level, therefore prolonging 'youthhood'.

9 In our results section, we report our findings based on the quality of policy formulation and implementation.

10 All of the individual-level variables are weighted.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elvis Bisong Tambe

Elvis Bisong Tambe is Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Linnaeus University, Sweden. His research interests lie in the field of political behaviour, political participation, public opinion, voting and electoral processes, with a focus on new and emerging democracies. He is the author of Electoral Participation in Newly Consolidated Democracies: Turnout in Africa, Latin America, East Asia and Post-Communist Europe (Routledge, 2021).

Elizaveta Kopacheva

Elizaveta Kopacheva is a doctoral student in Political Science at Linnaeus University, Sweden. Her interest focuses on political behaviour, notably explaining factors that influence people to participate in online activism and other online political activities, e.g., petition signing or contacting.