14 The Outcast Majority and Postwar Development: Youth Exclusion and the Pressure for Success Marc Sommers Youth and the Status Quo stability is unfounded. Most female and male youth, it turns out, are peaceful, including in times of war. Across today’s developing world, unprecedentedly This chapter explains why the approach to youth large youth populations are evident alongside a exclusion isn’t working, and what can be done to second predominant phenomenon: profound and transform it. The chapter draws mainly from the persistent exclusion of youth. Rare is the case where national governments, or their international case of war and postwar Africa, where the distance development partners, introduce a viable solution between youth and governments and international to address these dual challenges. Much too often, development agencies tends to be pronounced, and colossal cohorts of youthful citizens are considered where inaccurate stereotypes about young people security threats, to be counteracted with a mix pervade. The changes that are required necessarily of state repression and employment programs move governments and international development for a tiny fraction of the youth population. The agencies out of their comfort zone. The reason is approach is unintentionally counterproductive simple: the extensive exclusion of youth underscores and heavily gendered. It is also often based on how the status quo doesn’t work. The proposed assumptions drawn from suspect evidence. The solutions of governments and development popular conception of demographic youth bulge agencies promise to be inadequate or misguided, populations as threats to social cohesion and largely because their target group — excluded youth 3 4 • Marc Sommers majorities — usually has no say in the initiatives or social disturbance (Goldstone 2002; Mesquida that governments and agencies implement. The and Weiner 1999; Urdal 2004; Zakaria 2001). state violence that occurs concurrently with this Related to this assertion is the idea that many male lack of voice merely fuels the disconnect. youth are apt to rebel violently when given the chance (Cincotta et al. 2003; Collier et al. 2006; The chapter concludes with a series of proposed remedies, mainly focused on the international Kaplan 2000), in particular those in countries development actors that promise to address youth with strong urbanization levels (Goldstone 2010). exclusion by enhancing inclusiveness, relevance Quantitative correlations have been highlighted, and receptivity in the development response. The in short, to propose that when unusually large chapter draws from the findings, analysis and numbers of male youth are around, societies can reform framework of my book The Outcast Majority: become dangerously unstable and political conflict War, Development, and Youth in Africa (Sommers can result. 2015). Further research has questioned this assertion. Among the key issues is that many youth bulge countries have never had major conflicts while Peaceful Youth? others have emerged from conflict and never Why are most youth peaceful? The exact reverse returned to it (as in Sub-Saharan Africa: Sommers has been a much more common perception: that 2011). In addition, when wars do take place, “only youth (male youth in particular) are threats to a minority of young men participate in conflicts” their own societies. The starting point for this (Barker and Ricardo 2006, 181). Furthermore, assertion begins with youth bulge demographics, a large youth populations in cities have been found to trend that has become a dominant force in recent moderate, not increase, the risk of social disturbance decades in the developing world. By 2006, 86 (Urdal and Hoelscher 2009). Recent research also percent of all youth (1.3 billion) were in developing has challenged the idea that male youth are the countries (World Bank 2006, 4). The rate of youth “protagonists of virtually all violent political action in developing countries has slowed but is still as well as political extremism with a potential rising: 90 percent of the world’s youth will be to threaten democracy” (Weber 2013, 335). In in developing countries by 2025 (Zeus 2010, 7). contrast, researchers have uncovered a direct The youngest overall population on the planet lies relationship between youth bulge populations and in Sub-Saharan Africa, which “will remain the state repression. The research highlights a tendency youngest region in the world in the decades to for states to apply proactive force toward youth- come” (Filmer and Fox 2014, 26). dominated populations, as by restricting rights or instigating arrests, disappearances and violence A “youth bulge” is thought to exist when an (Nordås and Davenport 2013). Finally, questions unusually large proportion of the adult population have also been raised about the touted connection is constituted of youth. One published source between youth unemployment and violent unrest asserts that the youth bulge threshold arrives (Cramer 2010; Izzi 2013; Walton 2010). Drivers when youth comprise more than 40 percent of of youth violence have been found to be tied more all adults in a population (Cincotta et al. 2003, directly to issues of poor governance and exclusion 43). Current approaches to youth challenges than to unemployment (Mercy Corps 2015). during and after wars routinely emphasize the potential of male youth to promote instability and In the end, the tantalizing data on the perceived violence. Some commentators have emphasized danger of “too many young men with not enough to the correlation between populations with youth do” (Cincotta et al. 2003, 44) largely surfaces when bulge demographics and the likelihood of violence members of the target group — male youth/young The Outcast Majority and Postwar Development: Youth Exclusion and the Pressure for Success • 5 men — are not interviewed. Overwhelmingly, the Cultural definitions of youth in Africa connect data that supports the “youth bulge and instability directly to a pervasive form of youth exclusion. thesis” is quantitative.1 Qualitative interviews Being a youth often is considered a stage of life with male (and female) youth could reveal between childhood and adulthood. The process has how and why most youth resist engagement in less to do with age than with gaining recognition violence, even when they live with inequality, state as a man or woman. But in most (if not all) African violence routinely directed against many of them, countries, it is nearly impossible for most youth to significant social and cultural constraints, and attain womanhood or manhood. Male youth in poverty. Nearly all youth experiencing all of this Rwanda, for example, must build a house before and more — and with no reasonable expectation getting married and becoming a parent. Yet, most of support or recognition coming their way from can’t get off square one: completing a house is government or international actors — nonetheless impossible for nearly everyone. regularly resist contributing to violence or conflict. Exactly why most youth resist engagement in Three dimensions of the tragic situation in Rwanda violence — despite the prospect of exclusion and are particularly notable: failed adulthood, as shortly will be explained — • First, many male youth in rural Rwanda remains under examined. Fortunately, evidence drop out of school to work. While the pay highlighting the role of youth as agents for positive tends to be low, one primary purpose is to change is beginning to emerge (for example, save money to build a house. Yet extensive Ankomah 2005; Ensor 2013; Law et al. 2014). field interviews with youth in Rwanda made it clear that male youth suspected they would never complete their house. War and the Sea of Exclusion A common comment from male youth Given the substantial attention paid to youth by so was that they had no choice — cultural many researchers, governments and development expectations forced many of them to try professionals, the absence of an agreed-upon to build a house. In such a situation, failed definition for youth is remarkable. The broad trend manhood is practically guaranteed. is to define youth by a simple age range. Richard • Second, Rwandan government villagization P. Cincotta, Robert Engelman and Daniele policies have made the house construction Anastasion (2003, 43), for example, define youth task substantially more difficult. State (or young adults) as people between ages 15 mandates for where all new houses must be and 29. However, the United Nations typically built (in collective imidugudu villages) and employs a 15-to-24 age range (UNESCO [n.d.]), their size (a government official surmised while the United States Agency for International that the state requirement for house size was Development uses ages 10 to 29 (USAID 2012, six times what an ordinary male youth could 4). For a great many African governments, the afford to build [Sommers 2012, 128]) were youth category extends from age 14 or 15 up to considerable obstacles.2 age 35 (as in Sierra Leone, Rwanda and many others). No common definition for youth exists 2 Theimidugudu villages and their impact on for the multitude of international institutions and Rwandan youth are described thus: “There is a governments that are concerned with them. government regulation that directly and negatively affected youth efforts to construct houses: the 1 The literature on the youth and instability thesis national policy mandating that all new houses in has been reviewed by the author at length in prior rural