Violence and youth voter turnout in sub-saharan Africa

ABSTRACT

Despite the growing literature on political violence in sub-Saharan Africa, there is, surprisingly, a limited number of studies exploring its relationship with voter turnout, and specifically youth turnout, in the region. Africa is a relatively young continent, and the majority of its population is youth, positioning them as an important voting group. However, recent studies have suggested a shift in youth interest from voting to other forms of political participation such as protest. This paper explores the relationship between violence and youth voter turnout in sub-Saharan Africa. Using cross-sectional nationally representative data from the Afrobarometer public attitude survey from 20 countries, a correlation analysis is carried out to explore the relationship between fear of violence and turnout (voted in the last elections) among youth. The analysis shows a negative relationship between violence and voting among youth. Analyses controlling for employment, education and party affiliation also show that none of these had an effect on the strength and direction of the relationship. This suggests that violence could be a factor in explaining youth voter turnout in sub-Saharan Africa.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth
• elections
• violence
• turnout
• political participation

Acknowledgements

The data set used in the analysis for this paper was produced by the AfroBarometer survey group. The author would like to thank Adebayo Samuel and Emmanuel Sanyi for their useful comments to earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Dabesaki Mac-Ikemenjima is an external research associate of the University of East Anglia. He completed his PhD in International Development at the University of East Anglia, undertaking a mixed-methods study on the role of young people’s goals in the development of youth quality of life measures. His research interests include analyses on youth political participation, aspirations and measurement of youth quality of life in sub-Saharan Africa.

Notes

1. The Cable News Network chronicles here (http://goo.gl/7HB4Gv) various online platforms through which youth attempt to mobilise their peers to participate in an informed way in the elections process for Nigeria’s 2015 National elections.

2. Cameron says he is happy to hold vote on lowering voting age to 16 (retrieved from http://goo.gl/BsY9mx).