Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper is a look at the state of young African American men in Baltimore and Washington DC. In Baltimore approximately 24,000 young African American men have been kicked out of school and placed in incarceration. This paper takes a look at the factors that contribute to young African American men to failing school and then alternatively being enticed into a life of crime resulting in incarceration. This paper also examines the affect of mentoring on young African American males and the resulting effect it has on incarceration rates.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Since September 2002, the Ivory Coast has been embroiled in a conflict that threatens the stability throughout West Africa. This crisis raises questions that are at the interface of domestic and international concerns. Indeed, the contemporary crisis is often analysed as the expression of claims for a "second independence" vis-á-vis the former colonial power. However, these claims relate most specifically to an ongoing debate about the foundations of national sovereignty and the nation-state. What is at stake in today's war is the future of the relations between various communities, and most notably those between so-called "autochthonous" people (les autochtones) and "foreigners" (les allogènes). This implies contestation over definitions of the contours of the city-state as well as over the content and modalities of citizenship. As many of the protagonists of the conflict claim, this is a "war over modernity", in which the state and the nation are formed (as in classical terms), but which also, and quite paradoxically gives rise to new figures of individual-citizens, who refer simultaneously to regional and global registers. This paper will try to analyse the ongoing mobilisation of these arguments of autochthony, citizenship and sovereignty by the so-called "Young Patriots" in their struggle for international and domestic emanicipation

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Most of the civil wars in sub-Saharan Africa have been attributed in one form or another to ethnicity. The general assumption is that ethnic division is directly related to social conflicts, civil wars and democratic breakdown. While scholars point out that conflict and breakdown are not determined by ethnicity per se, but rather the politicization of it, a crucial question remains: Under what conditions does ethnicity become politically salient? Conversely, what are the dominant constraints on ethnic politicization?

This paper seeks to address this question through research on Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, countries chosen because of the variation in the political salience of ethnicity despite an impressive number of social, economic, political, historical and demographic commonalities. The paper submits that the issue is as much about elite behavior as it is about the ethnic composition of a country. A huge part of the puzzle has to do with the dominant constraints and incentives provided by political institutions, which in effect determine the opportunity for political elites to make appeals on the basis of ethnic differences.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper examines the development of telecommunications systems in two West African countries, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, from historical perspective. While a variety of economic and policy-related factors affect the outcomes of telecommunications reforms in developing countries, other more general factors may play a significant role in setting the stage for the shape of the system that evolves. There is some evidence to suggest that history, in this case the history of colonization, independence and post-independence relationships, may have influenced the development of telecommunications systems in some African countries.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In both these countries a gap is emerging between the military and political leaders of militias and their rank and file. In Liberia, these respective leaders are currently enjoying the spoils from their war under the new power-sharing arrangement, whereas most of the combatants are discovering that they find themselves in the same disadvantaged position as prior to the war. The question is if they will find new peaceful ways of expressing their grievances, or will they interpret the current situation as a new call to arms. A smilar situation can be identified in Côte d'Ivoire. The militia called jeunes patriotes was established by president Laurent Gbagbo, in order to help him win back the streets of Abidjan. From the square they occupy in Abidjan (which they call the Sorbonne), they rally against people from the north, immigrants, the French and white people in general. As such, their actions clearly fits the politics of the current regime in power. However, many peopl in Abidjan also celebrate them for beating and cheating a system gone rancid. With all old channels to success - emigration, studying abroad, state employment, family connections - blocked, the new idea is the urban trickster, with a talent for self-promotion who beats the system. For the many young men and women in the jeunes patriotes, it has become clear that the formal Sorbonne of Côte d'Ivoire, the University of Abidjan, has nothing to offer them other than "graduation for unemployment", whereas their own Sorbonne in the streets of Abidjan offer the possibility of swift - but violent - upward social mobility.The cases of Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia offer the opportunitu to study in detail the social transformations that militias may bring about when the gaps between the discourse of the mass members and the practice of respective leaderships can no longer be renegotiated.