The Extent of Hate Speech Politics in Malawi: An Analysis of Proliferation of Hate Speech Ahead of 2009 General Elections
Joseph Boniface Maere · 2014
The paper examines the persistence of hate speech in the Malawian political landscape.Especially, exposing the political game espoused by political agents to downplay the legalstructures against hate speech, coined in the study as 'hate speech politics'. The objectives ofthe study include: exposing the tendencies that feature hate speech in politics in Malawi,despite having the hate speech codes, suggesting some of the steps that can be adopted toreduce the propagation of hate speech. The theoretical bases of the study include the conceptsof Liberal Democracy as expounded by John Locke, John Stuart Mill and the theory ofinstitutionalism. The informational gap the study seeks to fill is the rationale behindaddressing the institutional settings to curb hate speech promotion in political campaigns. Themain research question on whether we should promote freedom of expression and limitrestrictions of hate speech is central in the paper.