Student resistance and the democratic transition: student politics in Senegal 1999–2005

Zeilig, Leo

doi:10.1080/02533950802666949

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…For example, in Sénégal, students were referred to as the major stumbling block to educational reforms [38], noting that the recurrence of disruptive and counter-productive violent protests by students was fueled by outside political interference and concerns regarding who was supposedly fueling the student protest? This negative perception of student activism especially in post-colonial countries in Africa is in sharp contrast with the positive and progressive view such protests have had in the past [37]. The role that student activism, however violent, plays in bringing about reforms and transformation has been acknowledged by scholars who have argued that activism is an acceptable feature of human nature [39].…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…This results from the fact that student activists are often viewed as troublemakers who are being manipulated by political igures [37]. For example, in Sénégal, students were referred to as the major stumbling block to educational reforms [38], noting that the recurrence of disruptive and counter-productive violent protests by students was fueled by outside political interference and concerns regarding who was supposedly fueling the student protest?…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Student Voice: Embracing Student Activism as a Quality Improvement Tool in Higher Education

Garwe¹

2017

Global Voices in Higher Education

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This chapter illustrates how student activism, taken in the context of the student voice, can be harnessed as a way of enhancing the quality of educational provision in higher education. Agenda 2063 of the African Commission recognizes equitable access to quality higher education as critical for national development. In the face of an increase in student protests and the resultant destruction of infrastructure and human life, it becomes imperative to ind ways of creating positive and innovative teaching and learning environments that take full advantage of student activism. The chapter draws on existing literature on student activism and the value of student voice to inform the development of a model for incorporating the "student voice" as a way of harnessing the positive aspects of student activism.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Student Voice: Embracing Student Activism as a Quality Improvement Tool in Higher Education

Garwe¹

2017

Global Voices in Higher Education

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“…During the initial post-independence decades, student protests on campuses across the continent came to represent some of the most public challenges levied against postcolonial regimes by any social group (Zeilig 2009). In Sudan, for example, in October 1964, student protests at Khartoum University were ‘instrumental in … the uprising that brought down the military government of General Ibrahim Abboud’ (Argenti 2002: 129).…”

Section: Trajectories Of Student Activism and State Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Sudan, for example, in October 1964, student protests at Khartoum University were ‘instrumental in … the uprising that brought down the military government of General Ibrahim Abboud’ (Argenti 2002: 129). In Senegal, in the spring of 1968, demonstrations organized by students, in collaboration with trade unionists, forced the country's President Léopold Senghor to flee the capital and almost brought down his government in the process (Cruise O'Brien 2003: 169; Zeilig 2009; Bianchini 2016; Gueye 2017; Nugent 2012: 200–1). Perhaps most notably, African students’ protracted struggles against repressive state apparatuses in Ethiopia and South Africa during the 1970s and 1980s played a crucial role in the toppling of these regimes (Bundy 1987; Zewde 2014).…”

Section: Trajectories Of Student Activism and State Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction: student activism in an era of decolonization

Hodgkinson¹,

Melchiorre²

2019

Africa

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Scholarship on student activism in Africa has tended to be understood according to broader historical periodizations of elite African politics. This has largely been because of student activists' historical claims to be 'aspirant elites' (Cruise O'Brien 2003: 172). As such, scholars have explored student activists' role in anti-colonial nationalism in the mid-twentieth century, anti-structural adjustment and democratization protests since the late 1980s, and more recently in the resurgence of 'Fallist' student protests in South Africa (Nyamnjoh 2016; Booysen 2016; Heffernan et al. 2016). This special issue challenges these periodizations by exploring the histories of student activism during the era of decolonization immediately before and after independence. As the articles in this special issue demonstrate, unlike the first generation of nationalist leaders who had refined their emancipatory anticolonial politics on campuses abroad, African students in the era of decolonization did so through geographies that spanned both foreign institutions and newly created African universities. Inspired by Marxist-Leninism and Pan-African solidarity, these students often came to embrace transformational revolutionary politics during their university experiences. In many instances, their own expectations and political activities would come to challenge, upset and dramatically contest the designs of newly independent African states. The articles collected in this special issue, and first presented at a workshop entitled 'Student Activism Reconsidered' at the University of Oxford in July 2016, seek to develop understandings of African student activism during this critical period by revisiting postcolonial Africa's first student protests and experiences of university life. Many of the debates that these students initiated on campus would come, in subsequent decades, to be rearticulated on the national political stage through former students who went into prominent public positions or who set up or entered governing or opposition parties. As such, appreciating the ideas, behaviours and dreams that these people adopted during their university experiences can provide important insights into how they responded, as professionals and political leaders, to the challenges of economic crisis, structural adjustment and increasingly repressive authoritarian rule in the 1980s and 1990s. From its inception as a form of subjectivity, African university studenthood gave its members a 'cosmopolitan mobility' over social and spatial orders that opened up a new sense of political possibility (Ivaska 2018

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“…In the history of the University of Malawi it is like beginning from the late 80s when an economic pinch was felt by the university students in that they were asked to start contributing for higher education, they noticed that also under-funding affected the cafeteria, the type of cleaning facilities, even the brain drain in first year they had very capable lecturers and come fourth year that lecturer was no more there. ...when they tested freedom and saw that they could strike and demonstrate they never looked back and they must have thought that things were like that… While referring to Structural Adjustment Policies that led to the introduction of fees and generally dilapidated the university sector in Malawi (see Samoff & Carrol, 2003;Zeilig, 2009;Zeilig & Dawson, 2008) as contributing to the strife between students and university managers, the university manager also argues that when students got freedom to stage demonstrations they began to take demonstrations as normal. While the change to multi-party democracy in 1994 indeed brought excitement among university students, the contention in this thesis is that the causes of strife between students and university managers hinge on the dictatorial hangover that characterises the running of universities exemplified in the powerful-less-powerful relationship.…”

Section: Strife Between Students and University Managersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Anti-Democratic Practices in University Policy-Steerage, Management and Governance in Malawi: A Critical Theory Approach

Shawa¹

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This thesis draws on Critical Theory as advanced by Critical Theorists in the tradition of the Frankfurt School to explore the nature of anti-democratic practices within policy-steerage, management and governance of university education in Malawi. The thesis critiques instrumental use of reason and neopatrimonial aspects that permeate policy-steerage, management and governance of the university sector in Malawi, and suggests ways of emancipation or social change. Two philosophical ideas inform analysis of this emancipatory project: dialectical reasoning as advanced by the first generation Critical Theorists such as Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse and communicative rationality, which is complemented by the theory of the lifeworld as advanced by the second generation Critical Theorist, Habermas. Dialectical reasoning entails understanding things as they are now and what they might be in future, as such, it is a useful idea for emancipation in that it fosters constant questioning (reflexivity) on the part of actors to make things better. Communicative rationality entails that actors seek to reach common understanding and coordinate actions by reasoned arguments, consensus and cooperation rather than instrumental reasoning and is useful for attaining social change (Habermas, 1984, 1987). Data sources comprise global policy debates, policy documents and interviews with selected government policymakers, Malawian civil society, university administrators and leaders of university staff and student unions. The thesis reveals that at international policy-steerage level, university policy-making in Malawi is chiefly orchestrated by the World Bank using its economic power and the global-neoliberal logic. In this logic, Malawi follows the dictates of the powerful World Bank. Thus, the argument presented is that the World Bank’s university policy-steerage in Malawi follows instrumental rationality and is anti-democratic. Instrumental reasoning refers to the deliberate use of the power of reason for social control or manipulation. At university level, the thesis reveals a rivalry relationship among stakeholders which leads to constrained collegial governance. The thesis shows that the neopatrimonial attitude of presidentialism or the big-man syndrome, which permeates the management and governance of universities in Malawi, perpetuates instrumental use of reason and renders the system anti-democratic. At Malawi Government university policy-steerage level, the thesis shows problems associated with the usage of power by state presidents who are also chancellors of public universities. At this level, policy-steerage is interventionist and characterised by both neopatrimonial aspects of the big-man syndrome and patron-client relationships that lead to instrumental use of reason. Based on this Critical Theory analysis, a theory of university management and governance for Malawian universities is presented aimed at achieving emancipation. To achieve social change there is a need to challenge instrumental ways of reasoning and neopatrimonial aspects by employing dialectical reasoning and communicative rationality.

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Student resistance and the democratic transition: student politics in Senegal 1999–2005

Cited by 9 publications

References 7 publications

Student Voice: Embracing Student Activism as a Quality Improvement Tool in Higher Education

Student Voice: Embracing Student Activism as a Quality Improvement Tool in Higher Education

Introduction: student activism in an era of decolonization

Exploring Anti-Democratic Practices in University Policy-Steerage, Management and Governance in Malawi: A Critical Theory Approach

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