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Call for Papers
Theme: Social Media and the Democratic Process in Africa
Type: Online Conference
Institution: University of Ibadan
University of Kansas
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
Location: Online
Date: 9.–10.12.2022
Deadline: 30.7.2022
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The affordances of social media as interactive platforms that
democratize popular speech and enable new forms of sociality have
also reconfigured the practices of electoral politics. In Africa,
elections from Kenya to Nigeria and Ghana have underscored the
imbrications of digital democracies with analogue structures of the
political. Despite the benefits of social media to political
processes on the continent, digital media confront political agents
with potential problems that caution against any fetishizing logic or
techno-deterministic anxiety that conceals the ways that issues like
misinformation and fake negatively impact the democratic process in
Africa. This is besides the common knowledge that elections in
several African countries are beset with challenges on different
fronts: electoral violence, vote-buying election rigging, and ethnic
politicking and marginalization. Particularly challenging, however,
is that the democratic ‘virtue’ of self-dignity realised through
unhindered participation in the democratic process, is being
undermined.
One way this plays out is through digital culture. As social media
continues to animate political engagements and enables unsuppressed
democratic participation, the platforms are coming under state
surveillance. Hence, many African states have begun to make it
difficult for social media users to freely express themselves or
question their leaders, by crafting and implementing heavy-handed
regulations that require online users to register with regulators, as
well as compel bloggers and content creators to pay exorbitant taxes.
For example, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Tanzania, and Burkina Faso
are among countries that have joined a growing trend of censorious
governments that focalize an appreciation of growing state
surveillance in Africa. Indeed, the oversight tendencies of the state
have been particularly crucial ahead of recent elections in Tanzania,
Burkina Faso, and Uganda where leaders sought to contain the effects
of social media on their re-election bids. Restrictions on social
media were also implemented in 2019 around elections or referendums
in countries including Togo, Burundi, and Guinea (Obia 2021). The
recent (2021) ban on Twitter by the Nigerian Federal government on
the claims that the platform has become a tool in the hands of those
who seek to usurp the powers of the state and disrupt the peace of
the country is another case in hand, in this regard. Coups in
countries such as Mali and Sudan, as well as the aftermaths of such
coups, have also posed serious treats the democratic process in
Africa, but they also present political and media theorists with
perplexing questions about, for instance, the intersections between
coups, attempted government overthrows, and the “end of democracy,”
especially as these play pout in the context of media narratives
before or after such coups.
Though in Africa, the suppressive control of free speech in social
media is not by the big tech companies, such as Facebook, and
Twitter, who own social media platforms as David Runciman had alluded
to in his How Democracy Ends (2018), if, however, Runciman’s
persuasive argument that the attack on the individual’s dignity
through suppression of free speech is the greatest threat to
democracy’s survival in the twenty-first century be broadly
construed, then the limiting encounters of self-expression occasioned
by the state’s restrictions of social media use in many African
countries pose a grave challenge to the growth and survival of
democracy on the continent. Be that as it may, scholars such as
Yascha Mounk suppose that the rise and use of social media have
weakened the role of traditional gatekeepers of democracy, as it has
particularly empowered once-marginal movements and politicians to
pose grave threats to the survival of democracy. Indeed, for these
scholars, the rise of the internet and social media, along with the
fear of citizens that they will suffer greater hardships in the
future and the increasing challenge by minority ethnic groups to the
stability of democracies built on mono-ethnic nations, constitute
dangers to the survival of democracy as these upset what is regarded
as the “scope condition” for the stability of democracy.
In the light of the foregoing, we invite submissions that critically
engage the role of social media in the democratic process in Africa,
with reference, but not limited, to the following questions:
- How do we understand democracy and the democratic process in Africa
in the framework of digital cultures?
- Are there rational grounds for restricting the use of social media
in the democratic process in Africa?
- How should the value and virtue of self-expression in relation to
the democratic process be actualised through social media?
- What are the assumptions of a theory that undergirds state policies
on restrictions to the use of social media in the democratic process
in Africa? Are these assumptions justified and/or justifiable?
- Is state restriction of the use of social media in political
engagements a sliding slope to autocracy?
- Is social media to be seen as posing threats to the survival of
democracy in Africa? How is this so if it does pose threats to the
survival of democracy in Africa?
Submission Guidelines
Interested participants are encouraged to submit an abstract of
approx. 400 words prepared for blind review by 30th of July, 2022. We
will respond by the 13th of August, 2022. Abstracts and other
inquiries about the conference should be sent to:
[email protected]
Participants selected for the workshop will be asked to submit
complete papers of between 6,000 and 8,000 words to the same email
address by the 19th of November, 2022, so that papers can be
circulated among other participants of the same panel before the
conference. This is to enable peer-review comments of papers
submitted. We aim to allow for 15-20 minutes per presentation and
25-30 minutes for Q&A. However, this may be subject to change.
Please note that we especially welcome and encourage submissions from
groups that are traditionally underrepresented in political theory.
Submissions can either be conceptual/theory-based or empirical, but
we prefer that empirical papers are grounded on well-thought-out
theoretical/conceptual analysis.
Conference Registration and Participation are free and open to all.
Publication
Plans are being made by the conveners for the publication of papers
presented during the conference either as articles in special
editions in: Politikon: The South African Journal of Political
Science, or Democratization; or as chapters in an edited volume to be
published by either Springer, Palgrave, or Routledge.
Confirmed Keynote Speakers
Christopher Isike (University of Pretoria)
Ebenezer Babatunde Obadare (CFR, Washington, US)
Conveners
Peter Aloysius Ikhane, Ph.D (University of Ibadan)
James Yeku, Ph.D (University of Kansas)
Elvis Imafidon, Ph.D (SOAS, University of London)
Contact: [email protected]
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