Making Citizens 'National': Analysing the Impact of Ghana's National Service Scheme (NSS) and Nigeria's National Youth Service Corps (NYSC)

Both in popular and academic discourse, ethnic diversity or particular ethnic distributions are commonly associated with negative macro-societal outcomes, including political instability and outbreaks of violence (e.g. Reynal-Querol, 2002; Collier and Hoeffler, 2002), lower levels of economic growth (e.g. Easterly and Levine, 1997; Alesina et al., 1999) and less provision of public goods (e.g. Miguel & Gugerty, 2005; Easterly and Levine, 1997). Ever since Africa's decolonisation in the 1960s, many African countries therefore implemented and continue to implement policies of nation-building in an attempt to foster a sense of national unity that would override ethnic affiliations with a spirit of common citizenship and loyalty to the state (Berman, 2004). National service programmes constitute one of these nation-building policies. National youth service programmes aim to contribute to the nation-building objective by mobilizing young university graduates to conduct public service in parts of the country outside their areas of origin. The programmes are premised on the idea that intergroup contact and interaction between youths from different regions, ethnic groups, and religions will lead to increased intergroup understanding, reduced prejudices, and increased feelings of togetherness (Pitner, 2007). At the same time, national service programmes are believed to contribute to economic development and literacy rates in rural areas while providing the participants with useful skills and job opportunities (Obadare, 2007). Yet, In spite of the prevalence of national service programmes in Africa, research specifically focusing on the impact and functioning of national youth service programmes is extremely limited and primarily qualitative in nature (e.g. Marenin, 1989; Maakwe, 1992; Molefe, 2001; Patel, 2009; Moleni, 2007; Obadare, 2010). This dissertation aims to address this important academic lacuna by analysing the impact of two of the largest and oldest mandatory national youth service programmes in Africa: Ghana's National Service Scheme (NSS) and Nigeria's National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). The dissertation builds upon and contributes to two broad traditions of research which have developed in comparative isolation: sociological and social-psychological work on the contact hypothesis (e.g. Brown & Hewstone, 2005; Pettigrew, 1998; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006; Tausch & Hewstone, 2010) and, political and historical research on nation-building processes in Afric