Jeffrey W Paller
Biographic Data
| ID | 132623 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jeffrey W Paller |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jeffrey W |
| FAMILY NAME | Paller |
| SIGNATURE | PALLER J W |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of San Francisco |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6983-065X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 128 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Political change in African cities
Claiming the city
Rapid urbanization is changing the way Africans experience and engage the state in their everyday lives, creating new opportunities for urban claim-making. But it also creates the conditions for local capture. In their quest for rights and services, how do neighborhoods navigate these rapidly changing political environments? How does this vary across poor, middle-class, and wealthy neighborhoods? Based on 16 focus group discussions and 87 key inf…
Building the City from Below
In his book Seeing Like a State, James Scott writes, "We have repeatedly observed the natural and social failures of thin, formulaic simplifications imposed through the agency of state power" (1998, 309). State and top-down planning lacks mētis, or the common sense and practical experience that people on the ground possess of their everyday environments. Instead, Scott proposes a focus on practical knowledge, which "depends on an exceptionally cl…
The social embeddedness of elections
Campaign rallies serve as arenas of political communication where candidates present their campaign messages face-to-face in order to gain votes. This article suggests that rallies are one of several forms of campaign visits along with official business stops, courtesy calls to local notables, and personal interactions with constituents. Drawing on an original dataset of campaign visits in Ghana's 2016 and 2020 elections, we find that a significa…
Sustainability Politics and Housing Development in Urban Brazil and Ghana
Rapid population growth in the Global South places extreme pressure on cities, making it very difficult for governments to provide the necessary housing to city dwellers. The short-term needs and demands of residents often contradict or challenge long-term central urban plans and sustainable solutions. Important but overlooked actors in the politics of sustainable urban development are community organisations that demand housing and rights to the…
Urbanization and political change in Africa
Urbanization is transforming the human and political geography of Africa. While a growing body of research explores the urban dimensions of clientelism, contentious action, and social mobilization, there has been less attention given to the ways in which this demographic megatrend is influencing political change more broadly. We argue that the political implications of African urbanization are contingent on local conditions and experiences; there…
Demanding Recognition
Despite increasingly programmatic politics and competitive elections, political clientelism remains an enduring feature of African politics. More so, while politicians rarely deliver on political promises, citizens continue to demand and participate in patron–client relations. While moral economy and instrumentalist accounts offer insight into the puzzling persistence of political clientelism, we offer an additional framework based on demands for…
Everyday politics and sustainable urban development in the Global South
This paper introduces a framework of sustainable urban development that considers the everyday politics of cities and their neighbourhoods. First, it considers the challenges facing cities in the Global South, and calls for renewed attention to the daily political struggles of urban residents. Second, it reviews the scholarship on the politics of urban governance and incorporates the politics of belonging and how citizens make claims to urban spa…
Democracy in Ghana
Rapid urbanization and political liberalization is changing the nature of African politics and societies. This book develops a framework for the study of democracy and development that emphasizes informal institutions and the politics of belonging in the context of daily life, in contrast to the formal and electoral paradigms that dominate the social sciences. Based on fifteen months of field research including ethnographic observation, focus gro…
Democratizing urban development
Democratizing Urban Development is a valuable contribution to the growing field of comparative urban politics (Post, 2018). In the study, Maureen M. Donaghy compares housing policies in cities in t
Dignified Public Expression
Research on political accountability emphasizes elections and popular control, but often neglects how ordinary people hold their leaders to account in the context of daily life. Dominant scholarly approaches emphasize the logic of electoral sanctioning and removal, missing the importance of mutual respect between representatives and citizens. This article introduces a new logic of democratic accountability based on the social practices, daily pol…
Building permanence
Fire outbreaks are common sources of anxiety and insecurity in informal settlements, but they can also provide new opportunities for claim making and governance of urban space. This article examines how a series of four fires in Accra, Ghana - three of which took place in its largest squatter settlement - offered new opportunities to experiment with governance, or a new way for residents and leaders to imagine and construct the future. Empiricall…
Ethnographies of emergence
The articles that appear in this part issue focus on disparate topics, from rumours of electoral fraud to the production of art, and span the African continent from Guinea and Ghana in the west to Zimbabwe in the south. Despite their evident differences, the contributors see their pieces as united by a common theme: emergence. Elaborating on Simone's influential exploration of the intertwined concepts of emergence and emergency (2004), as well as…
Democratic Ruptures and Electoral Outcomes in Africa
Repetitive elections are important benchmarks for assessing the maturity of Africa's electoral democracies. Yet the processes through which elections entrench a democratic culture remain understudied. We introduce an important mechanism called a democratic rupture: an infraction in the democratisation process during competitive elections that has the potential to cause a constitutional crisis. It provides a new avenue of citizen participation out…
The Contentious Politics of African Urbanization
The prospects for sustainable urban development are embedded in larger political struggles
Defending the city, defending votes
Rapid urbanisation in African democracies is changing the way that political parties engage with their constituents, shifting relations between hosts and migrants. This article examines the strategies that parties use to maintain and build electoral support in increasingly diverse contexts. Drawing on in-depth interviews and ethnographic research in Accra, Ghana, we find that some urban political parties rely on inclusive forms of mobilisation, p…
Informal Institutions and Personal Rule in Urban Ghana
Contrary to expectations of modern democratic development, the establishment of liberal-democratic institutions in Ghana has not led to the demise of political clientelism. Instead, the underlying informal institutions of leadership-friendship, capitalist entrepreneurship, family, and religion-contribute to the persistence of personal rule in urban Ghana. Leaders amass political power by accumulating followers in daily life. The article provides …
Political Struggle to Political Sting
Why do residents in new democracies become disillusioned with democracy, despite significant improvements in the development of liberal-democratic institutions, the extension of political rights and freedoms, and peaceful turnovers of power? This article advances a theory of democratic disillusionment, which is based on the concept of political sting: feelings of betrayal, insult, and disrespect among ordinary citizens stemming from a government'…
Informal Institutions and Personal Rule in Urban Ghana
Contrary to expectations of modern democratic development, the establishment of liberal-democratic institutions in Ghana has not led to the demise of political clientelism. Instead, the underlying informal institutions of leadership-friendship, capitalist entrepreneurship, family, and religion-contribute to the persistence of personal rule in urban Ghana. Leaders amass political power by accumulating followers in daily life. The article provides …
Democratic Ruptures and Electoral Outcomes in Africa
Repetitive elections are important benchmarks for assessing the maturity of Africa's electoral democracies. Yet the processes through which elections entrench a democratic culture remain understudied. We introduce an important mechanism called a democratic rupture: an infraction in the democratisation process during competitive elections that has the potential to cause a constitutional crisis. It provides a new avenue of citizen participation out…
Dignified Public Expression
Research on political accountability emphasizes elections and popular control, but often neglects how ordinary people hold their leaders to account in the context of daily life. Dominant scholarly approaches emphasize the logic of electoral sanctioning and removal, missing the importance of mutual respect between representatives and citizens. This article introduces a new logic of democratic accountability based on the social practices, daily pol…
Demanding Recognition
Despite increasingly programmatic politics and competitive elections, political clientelism remains an enduring feature of African politics. More so, while politicians rarely deliver on political promises, citizens continue to demand and participate in patron–client relations. While moral economy and instrumentalist accounts offer insight into the puzzling persistence of political clientelism, we offer an additional framework based on demands for…
Building permanence
Fire outbreaks are common sources of anxiety and insecurity in informal settlements, but they can also provide new opportunities for claim making and governance of urban space. This article examines how a series of four fires in Accra, Ghana - three of which took place in its largest squatter settlement - offered new opportunities to experiment with governance, or a new way for residents and leaders to imagine and construct the future. Empiricall…
Defending the city, defending votes
Rapid urbanisation in African democracies is changing the way that political parties engage with their constituents, shifting relations between hosts and migrants. This article examines the strategies that parties use to maintain and build electoral support in increasingly diverse contexts. Drawing on in-depth interviews and ethnographic research in Accra, Ghana, we find that some urban political parties rely on inclusive forms of mobilisation, p…
The social embeddedness of elections
Campaign rallies serve as arenas of political communication where candidates present their campaign messages face-to-face in order to gain votes. This article suggests that rallies are one of several forms of campaign visits along with official business stops, courtesy calls to local notables, and personal interactions with constituents. Drawing on an original dataset of campaign visits in Ghana's 2016 and 2020 elections, we find that a significa…
Urbanization and political change in Africa
Urbanization is transforming the human and political geography of Africa. While a growing body of research explores the urban dimensions of clientelism, contentious action, and social mobilization, there has been less attention given to the ways in which this demographic megatrend is influencing political change more broadly. We argue that the political implications of African urbanization are contingent on local conditions and experiences; there…
Everyday politics and sustainable urban development in the Global South
This paper introduces a framework of sustainable urban development that considers the everyday politics of cities and their neighbourhoods. First, it considers the challenges facing cities in the Global South, and calls for renewed attention to the daily political struggles of urban residents. Second, it reviews the scholarship on the politics of urban governance and incorporates the politics of belonging and how citizens make claims to urban spa…
Democratizing urban development
Democratizing Urban Development is a valuable contribution to the growing field of comparative urban politics (Post, 2018). In the study, Maureen M. Donaghy compares housing policies in cities in t
Ethnographies of emergence
The articles that appear in this part issue focus on disparate topics, from rumours of electoral fraud to the production of art, and span the African continent from Guinea and Ghana in the west to Zimbabwe in the south. Despite their evident differences, the contributors see their pieces as united by a common theme: emergence. Elaborating on Simone's influential exploration of the intertwined concepts of emergence and emergency (2004), as well as…
Claiming the city
Rapid urbanization is changing the way Africans experience and engage the state in their everyday lives, creating new opportunities for urban claim-making. But it also creates the conditions for local capture. In their quest for rights and services, how do neighborhoods navigate these rapidly changing political environments? How does this vary across poor, middle-class, and wealthy neighborhoods? Based on 16 focus group discussions and 87 key inf…
Building the City from Below
In his book Seeing Like a State, James Scott writes, "We have repeatedly observed the natural and social failures of thin, formulaic simplifications imposed through the agency of state power" (1998, 309). State and top-down planning lacks mētis, or the common sense and practical experience that people on the ground possess of their everyday environments. Instead, Scott proposes a focus on practical knowledge, which "depends on an exceptionally cl…
Sustainability Politics and Housing Development in Urban Brazil and Ghana
Rapid population growth in the Global South places extreme pressure on cities, making it very difficult for governments to provide the necessary housing to city dwellers. The short-term needs and demands of residents often contradict or challenge long-term central urban plans and sustainable solutions. Important but overlooked actors in the politics of sustainable urban development are community organisations that demand housing and rights to the…
Political Struggle to Political Sting
Why do residents in new democracies become disillusioned with democracy, despite significant improvements in the development of liberal-democratic institutions, the extension of political rights and freedoms, and peaceful turnovers of power? This article advances a theory of democratic disillusionment, which is based on the concept of political sting: feelings of betrayal, insult, and disrespect among ordinary citizens stemming from a government'…
Political Struggle to Political Sting
Why do residents in new democracies become disillusioned with democracy, despite significant improvements in the development of liberal-democratic institutions, the extension of political rights and freedoms, and peaceful turnovers of power? This article advances a theory of democratic disillusionment, which is based on the concept of political sting: feelings of betrayal, insult, and disrespect among ordinary citizens stemming from a government'…
Informal Institutions and Personal Rule in Urban Ghana
Contrary to expectations of modern democratic development, the establishment of liberal-democratic institutions in Ghana has not led to the demise of political clientelism. Instead, the underlying informal institutions of leadership-friendship, capitalist entrepreneurship, family, and religion-contribute to the persistence of personal rule in urban Ghana. Leaders amass political power by accumulating followers in daily life. The article provides …
The Contentious Politics of African Urbanization
The prospects for sustainable urban development are embedded in larger political struggles
Defending the city, defending votes
Rapid urbanisation in African democracies is changing the way that political parties engage with their constituents, shifting relations between hosts and migrants. This article examines the strategies that parties use to maintain and build electoral support in increasingly diverse contexts. Drawing on in-depth interviews and ethnographic research in Accra, Ghana, we find that some urban political parties rely on inclusive forms of mobilisation, p…
Democratic Ruptures and Electoral Outcomes in Africa
Repetitive elections are important benchmarks for assessing the maturity of Africa's electoral democracies. Yet the processes through which elections entrench a democratic culture remain understudied. We introduce an important mechanism called a democratic rupture: an infraction in the democratisation process during competitive elections that has the potential to cause a constitutional crisis. It provides a new avenue of citizen participation out…
Democracy in Ghana
Rapid urbanization and political liberalization is changing the nature of African politics and societies. This book develops a framework for the study of democracy and development that emphasizes informal institutions and the politics of belonging in the context of daily life, in contrast to the formal and electoral paradigms that dominate the social sciences. Based on fifteen months of field research including ethnographic observation, focus gro…
Democratizing urban development
Democratizing Urban Development is a valuable contribution to the growing field of comparative urban politics (Post, 2018). In the study, Maureen M. Donaghy compares housing policies in cities in t
Dignified Public Expression
Research on political accountability emphasizes elections and popular control, but often neglects how ordinary people hold their leaders to account in the context of daily life. Dominant scholarly approaches emphasize the logic of electoral sanctioning and removal, missing the importance of mutual respect between representatives and citizens. This article introduces a new logic of democratic accountability based on the social practices, daily pol…
Building permanence
Fire outbreaks are common sources of anxiety and insecurity in informal settlements, but they can also provide new opportunities for claim making and governance of urban space. This article examines how a series of four fires in Accra, Ghana - three of which took place in its largest squatter settlement - offered new opportunities to experiment with governance, or a new way for residents and leaders to imagine and construct the future. Empiricall…
Ethnographies of emergence
The articles that appear in this part issue focus on disparate topics, from rumours of electoral fraud to the production of art, and span the African continent from Guinea and Ghana in the west to Zimbabwe in the south. Despite their evident differences, the contributors see their pieces as united by a common theme: emergence. Elaborating on Simone's influential exploration of the intertwined concepts of emergence and emergency (2004), as well as…
Everyday politics and sustainable urban development in the Global South
This paper introduces a framework of sustainable urban development that considers the everyday politics of cities and their neighbourhoods. First, it considers the challenges facing cities in the Global South, and calls for renewed attention to the daily political struggles of urban residents. Second, it reviews the scholarship on the politics of urban governance and incorporates the politics of belonging and how citizens make claims to urban spa…
The social embeddedness of elections
Campaign rallies serve as arenas of political communication where candidates present their campaign messages face-to-face in order to gain votes. This article suggests that rallies are one of several forms of campaign visits along with official business stops, courtesy calls to local notables, and personal interactions with constituents. Drawing on an original dataset of campaign visits in Ghana's 2016 and 2020 elections, we find that a significa…
Sustainability Politics and Housing Development in Urban Brazil and Ghana
Rapid population growth in the Global South places extreme pressure on cities, making it very difficult for governments to provide the necessary housing to city dwellers. The short-term needs and demands of residents often contradict or challenge long-term central urban plans and sustainable solutions. Important but overlooked actors in the politics of sustainable urban development are community organisations that demand housing and rights to the…
Urbanization and political change in Africa
Urbanization is transforming the human and political geography of Africa. While a growing body of research explores the urban dimensions of clientelism, contentious action, and social mobilization, there has been less attention given to the ways in which this demographic megatrend is influencing political change more broadly. We argue that the political implications of African urbanization are contingent on local conditions and experiences; there…
Demanding Recognition
Despite increasingly programmatic politics and competitive elections, political clientelism remains an enduring feature of African politics. More so, while politicians rarely deliver on political promises, citizens continue to demand and participate in patron–client relations. While moral economy and instrumentalist accounts offer insight into the puzzling persistence of political clientelism, we offer an additional framework based on demands for…
Claiming the city
Rapid urbanization is changing the way Africans experience and engage the state in their everyday lives, creating new opportunities for urban claim-making. But it also creates the conditions for local capture. In their quest for rights and services, how do neighborhoods navigate these rapidly changing political environments? How does this vary across poor, middle-class, and wealthy neighborhoods? Based on 16 focus group discussions and 87 key inf…
Building the City from Below
In his book Seeing Like a State, James Scott writes, "We have repeatedly observed the natural and social failures of thin, formulaic simplifications imposed through the agency of state power" (1998, 309). State and top-down planning lacks mētis, or the common sense and practical experience that people on the ground possess of their everyday environments. Instead, Scott proposes a focus on practical knowledge, which "depends on an exceptionally cl…
Political change in African cities
Political science (17 works) · Politics (15 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Economics (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Political economy (9 works) · Urban and Rural Development Challenges (8 works) · Economic growth (7 works) · Democracy (6 works) · Law (6 works)