Student Movements and Autocracies in Africa

Abstract

This chapter offers a historical mapping of student movements and youth-led protests against autocracies in African countries. It focuses on student movements in Senegal, Tanzania and Sudan from the period before independence to the present day to consider the intersections of youth-hood, power, higher education institutions and the state in each of these cases. It highlight the various continuities and disjunctures in the ways that university student movements have challenged autocracy to consider how “successful” student protests can be in shifting political bases of power.