Who is responsible for corruption?: framing strategies of social movements in West Africa mobilizing against presidential term amendments

• Louisa Prause ^[1] ; Nina-Kathrin Wienkoop ^[2]
  1. [1] Freie Universität Berlin
  2. [2] Leuphana University of Lüneburg
• Localización: Partecipazione e conflitto, ISSN-e 2035-6609, Vol. 10, Nº. 3, 2017 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Anti-Corruption Movements), págs. 850-873
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Since 2011 youth movements have staged large protests in African countries for presidential term limits. These have been discussed as struggles against de-democratization. Looking at the movements Y’en a marre in Senegal and Balai citoyen in Burkina Faso we argue that these protests were just as much triggered by socio-economic grievances linked to a corrupt patronage system. Indeed, corruption has been a major issue for both campaigns. We ask how the movement leaders linked the fight against corruption with their struggle against third term amendments in a way that sparked mass mobilization. We use the framing approach as our theoretical framework and show that a framing based on the concept of citizenship enabled both movements to link the issue of corruption to the issue of presidential term amendments and at the same time create a sense of agency in the constituency. This explains at least partly why both Y’en a marre and Balai Citoyen succeeded in their mobilizing efforts