Listen, Politics is not for Children: Adult Authority, Social Conflict, and Youth Survival Strategies in Post Civil War Liberia

This dissertation explores the historical causes of the Liberian civil war (1989-2003), with a keen attention to the history of Liberian youth, since the beginning of the Republic in 1847. I carefully analyzed youth engagements in social and political change throughout the country¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿s history, including the ways by which the civil war impacted the youth and inspired them to create new social and economic spaces for themselves. As will be demonstrated in various chapters, despite their marginalization by the state, the youth have played a crucial role in the quest for democratization in the country, especially since the 1960s. I place my analysis of the youth in deep societal structures related to Liberia¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿s colonial past and neo-colonial status, as well as the impact of external factors, such as the financial and military support the regime of Samuel Doe received from the United States during the cold war and the influence of other African nations. I emphasize that the socio-economic and political policies implemented by the Americo-Liberians (freed slaves from the U.S.) who settled in the country beginning in 1822, helped lay the foundation for the civil war. I also argue that the oppressive regime of Samuel Kanyon Doe (1980-1990), the first indigenous non-settler president of Liberia, failed to address the prevailing social, economic and political inequalities that had been fostered by the Americo-Liberians, and this failure provided additional impetus that ignited what seemed clearly to be a time-bomb waiting to explode due to the deep inequality in Liberian society, an inequality that had made a segment of the society already angry with the political status quo. The youth of Liberia were among those who resented the political status quo fostered by the Americo-Liberians and later entrenched by the Doe regime. Thus, contrary to prevailing notions in the bulk of the existing literature that depicts the youth as innocent people drawn into civil conflicts against their will, I argue that Liberian youth considered themselves active members of their society, who must contribute to its transformation even if that meant picking up arms against corrupt leaders.