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| Title: | Military Patrimonialism and Child Soldier Clientalism in the Liberian and Sierra Leonean Civil Wars |
| Author: | Murphy, William P. |
| Year: | 2003 |
| Periodical: | African Studies Review |
| Volume: | 46 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Period: | September |
| Pages: | 61-87 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | Sierra Leone Liberia |
| Subjects: | patronage child soldiers Military, Defense and Arms Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/1514826 |
| Abstract: | This article uses a Weberian model of patrimonialism to analyse clientalist and 'staff' roles of child soldiers in the military regimes of the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. It thereby examines institutional aspects of child soldier identity and behaviour not addressed in other standard models of child soldiers as coerced victims, revolutionary idealists, or delinquent opportunists. It shifts analytical attention from nation-State patrimonialism to the patrimonial dimensions of rebel regimes. It locates child soldiers within a social organization of domination and reciprocity based on violence structured through patronage ties with military commanders. It identifies child soldier 'staff' functions within the administration of a patrimonial regime. A Weberian focus on the institutionalization and strategies of domination and dependency provides a corrective to views that exoticize child soldiers, decontextualize their behaviour, or essentialize their 'youth' as an explanatory principle. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract] |
