This book brings together conceptual debates on the impact of youth-hood and  gender on state building in Africa. It offers contemporary and interdisciplinary  analyses on the role of protests as an alternative route for citizens to challenge  the ballot box as the only legitimate means of ensuring freedom. Drawing on case  studies from seven African countries, the contributors focus on specific political  moments in their respective countries to offer insights into how the state/society  social contract is contested through informal channels, and how political power  functions to counteract citizen’s voices. These contributions offer a different way  of thinking about state-building and structural change that goes beyond the  system-based approaches that dominate scholarship on democratization and  political structures. In effect, it provides a basisfor organizers and social   movements to consider how to build solidarity beyond influencing government  institutions.

Chapters 3, 5, and 6 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.