Anja Osei
Biographic Data
| ID | 73016 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anja Osei |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anja |
| FAMILY NAME | Osei |
| SIGNATURE | OSEI A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Konstanz |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8087-7333 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 80 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Old boys, church mates, childhood friends: How social relations form and sustain the multi-ethnic political elite in Africa
In analysing elite accommodation, political science has often focused on ascriptive attributes such as region or ethnicity. The social foundations of elite networks, however, are more complex. Using original data from Gabon, Benin, Cameroon, Uganda and Botswana, this paper shows that the majority of Members of Parliament have known at least one of their fellow Members of Parliament prior to being elected. Many of these prior contacts stem from jo…
The Role of Social and Symbolic Capital in Electoral Politics: How Social Networks and Parliamentary Debates Influence Re-election in Uganda
Many African legislatures experience high rates of electoral turnover. But who gets re-elected and why? In this article, we employ a Bourdieuan framework to explore how different endowments of legislators with various forms of capital (economic, social, cultural, and symbolic) affect electoral success in Uganda. Using an original dataset with biographical, attitudinal, relational, and performance-related information on Members of the 10th Ugandan…
Political preferences and candidate choice in party primaries in Ghana: A conjoint survey experiment
Party primaries are hotly contested in Ghana. Although there is a growing literature on internal candidate selection processes in Africa, there is little information on the selectorate: who votes in party primaries, and what are the delegates’ preferences in candidate selection? To answer this question, we conducted a survey experiment across three Ghanaian constituencies. Our data show that party delegates are predominantly male and come from mo…
Linkage Matters: Integrating Sexual and Reproductive Health and Substance Use Treatment
The Link Study showed promising gains in provider knowledge, improvements in screening practices, and lasting collaboration across SRH and SUD service sectors. Findings highlight the potential of cross-disciplinary training and technical assistance to build integrated care pathways and strengthen community-based health systems
Personalization, elite cohesion, and regime stability: Differing outcomes in Cameroon and Gabon
Personal Power in Africa: Legislative Networks and Executive Appointments in Ghana, Togo and Gabon
Personal relations and networks have long been argued to dominate African politics. Since personal power is difficult to measure, much of the literature has remained either anecdotal or has used ethnicity to approximate power distributions. This article is proposing a social network approach to the analysis of personal power in legislatures and cabinets in three cases: Ghana, Togo and Gabon. We combine survey data on parliamentary discussion netw…
Tanzania under Magufuli: The Personalization of a Party-Based Regime
Contemporary research has shown that authoritarian regimes are not static. At the same time, gradual changes are often difficult to detect and the literature has not yet developed convincing tools to identify autocracy-to-autocracy transitions outside the visible ruptures of coups, power transfers, and opposition victories. Building on fieldwork in Tanzania, we show that patterns of rule shifted significantly under Magufuli. Once the model case o…
Introduction: Are Parliamentary Elites in Africa also Power Elites? Researching the Origins and Consequences of Varying Elite Configurations
Elites are an inherent feature of how power is organised in societies.1 Typically, theyconstitute a relatively small group, occupy strategic positions within organisations, havepower over decision-making and enjoy ‘disproportionate privileges and protection’.2Theories of elites have a long history in the fields of Political Science and Sociology, buttheir empirical study crosses disciplinary and methodological boundaries. Scholarly workhas been d…
A Coalition for Change? Role Orientations in the 12th Parliament of Botswana
Botswana's parliamentary democracy features a weak parliament that is ineffective in law making and executive oversight. Conventional explanations emphasise a dominant party system that emerged following independence, lack of operational independence from the executive, and the poor capacity of parliament as factors that undermine its effectiveness. Using a novel dataset that is based on interviews with Members of Parliament (MPs) on a wide range…
Minding the local slot: Municipalities as Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions
Political theory advocates the centrality of trust for democratic legitimacy and stability. It holds that democracy works best if citizens trust governance institutions. From this standpoint, we argue that the local political arena is conducive to nurturing trust, for onward projection onto national institutions. Using a mixed-method approach to a Ghana case study that combines in-depth interviews with regression and a propensity score matching t…
Vicious Cycles: Candidate Selection, Vertical Accountability, and MPs' Performance in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone is a successful case of postconflict democratization, but citizens' trust in parliament is low. Using qualitative and quantitative data, this article examines the relationship between MPs and their constituencies. Given the fierceness of the competition at the level of party primaries, aspiring MPs make promises they cannot keep. Confronted with unrealistic expectations, they reduce their presence in the constituency to a minimum. As…
Post-conflict democratisation in Sierra Leone: The Role of the Parliament
Rebuilding political legitimacy after civil war and state collapse is a challenging task. This paper looks at the role of the Parliament of Sierra Leone in this process. The analysis is concerned with two key areas: descriptive representation of the electorate to build inclusive politics, and elite reconciliation as a means of making democracy the only game in town. Based on data from a survey among Members of Parliament (MPs) and additional qual…
Presidential Term Limits and Regime Types: When Do Leaders Respect Constitutional Norms
Why do some leaders respect constitutional provisions like presidential term limits, while others do not? For all regimes, constitutions are important reference texts that provide some basic rules of the game. Within this framework, term limits and electoral laws are crucial because they are directly concerned with the exercise of power. Using Geddes' regime typology, this article is proposing a regime-oriented approach to explain the variation o…
Party, ethnicity, or region? Determinants of informal political exchange in the parliament of Ghana
This article analyzes the patterns of informal political exchange between Ghanaian parliamentarians. Whereas research on Western parliaments identifies the party dimension as the strongest predictor for explaining exchange patterns, we develop three possible theoretical explanations for non-Western legislatures. We try to explain informal political exchange by shared ideology (party), solidarity (ethnicity), or same material interests (region). W…
Like father, like son? Power and influence across two Gnassingbé presidencies in Togo
In personalized authoritarian systems, the death of a leader poses a serious challenge to regime survival. Togo, however, belongs to a small number of countries in which regime collapse has been avoided by the transfer of power to the deceased ruler’s son. But can the son simply pick up where the father left off? Combining a theoretically guided single case study with statistical network analysis, this article argues that hereditary succession in…
Elite Theory and Political Transitions: Networks of Power in Ghana and Togo
Formal party organisation and informal relations in African parties: Evidence from Ghana
It is often assumed that political parties in Africa have only weak formal structures and are instead dominated by informal, personalised networks. This paper seeks to challenge this view by presenting a much more nuanced picture of intra-party dynamics. Based on unique survey data from Ghana, it is shown how formal and informal party structures co-exist and interact at the national and constituency level. Because informal relationships are not d…
Elites and democracy in Ghana: A social network approach
This article presents new theoretical and empirical insights into democratization in Africa, using the typology developed by John Higley and Michael Burton to understand elite interaction in Ghana.Social network analysis (SNA) is used to test the main proposition of the Higley/Burton theory, namely that a 'liberal democracy is impossible without a consensually united elite'.Empirical evidence is provided from a unique data set that maps the inter…
From Conflict to Consensus? Elite Integration and Democracy in Ghana
The paper takes as its starting point Higley and Burton’s (2006) contention that no liberal democracy has ever evolved without a ‘consensually united elite’ which is structurally integrated and shares some general values. The fact that the evolution of a consensually united elite is a very rare event limits the prospects for the worldwide spread of liberal democracy. Ghana, however, could represent one of these rare cases. This paper looks at if …
Political parties in Ghana: Agents of democracy
Political parties are generally thought of as agents of democracy that fulfil a range of functions, such as policy formulation, interest aggregation and articulation, social integration, and elite recruitment. However, given the weakness of many African parties, are they able to contribute positively to democracy? This article seeks to answer this question by using Ghana – one of Africa's most successful democracies – as a case study. It is found…
Party System Institutionalization in Ghana and Senegal
This paper presents a comparative case study of party system institutionalization in Ghana and Senegal. Both countries experienced a democratic change in government in the year 2000, but while positive development has continued in Ghana, democratic quality in Senegal decreased over time. Can the concept of party institutionalization help to explain this diverging development? Four dimensions of party system institutionalization are systematically…
Party-Voter Linkage in Africa
Party-Voter Linkage in Africa: Ghana and Senegal in Comparative Perspective
Partyvoter Linkage In Africa Ghana And Senegal In Comparative Perspective
Reconstructing the Nation in Africa: The Politics of Nationalism in Ghana, Michael Amoah
Party System Institutionalization in Ghana and Senegal
This paper presents a comparative case study of party system institutionalization in Ghana and Senegal. Both countries experienced a democratic change in government in the year 2000, but while positive development has continued in Ghana, democratic quality in Senegal decreased over time. Can the concept of party institutionalization help to explain this diverging development? Four dimensions of party system institutionalization are systematically…
Elites and democracy in Ghana: A social network approach
This article presents new theoretical and empirical insights into democratization in Africa, using the typology developed by John Higley and Michael Burton to understand elite interaction in Ghana.Social network analysis (SNA) is used to test the main proposition of the Higley/Burton theory, namely that a 'liberal democracy is impossible without a consensually united elite'.Empirical evidence is provided from a unique data set that maps the inter…
Party, ethnicity, or region? Determinants of informal political exchange in the parliament of Ghana
This article analyzes the patterns of informal political exchange between Ghanaian parliamentarians. Whereas research on Western parliaments identifies the party dimension as the strongest predictor for explaining exchange patterns, we develop three possible theoretical explanations for non-Western legislatures. We try to explain informal political exchange by shared ideology (party), solidarity (ethnicity), or same material interests (region). W…
Like father, like son? Power and influence across two Gnassingbé presidencies in Togo
In personalized authoritarian systems, the death of a leader poses a serious challenge to regime survival. Togo, however, belongs to a small number of countries in which regime collapse has been avoided by the transfer of power to the deceased ruler’s son. But can the son simply pick up where the father left off? Combining a theoretically guided single case study with statistical network analysis, this article argues that hereditary succession in…
Formal party organisation and informal relations in African parties: Evidence from Ghana
It is often assumed that political parties in Africa have only weak formal structures and are instead dominated by informal, personalised networks. This paper seeks to challenge this view by presenting a much more nuanced picture of intra-party dynamics. Based on unique survey data from Ghana, it is shown how formal and informal party structures co-exist and interact at the national and constituency level. Because informal relationships are not d…
Elite Theory and Political Transitions: Networks of Power in Ghana and Togo
Political parties in Ghana: Agents of democracy
Political parties are generally thought of as agents of democracy that fulfil a range of functions, such as policy formulation, interest aggregation and articulation, social integration, and elite recruitment. However, given the weakness of many African parties, are they able to contribute positively to democracy? This article seeks to answer this question by using Ghana – one of Africa's most successful democracies – as a case study. It is found…
Personalization, elite cohesion, and regime stability: Differing outcomes in Cameroon and Gabon
Post-conflict democratisation in Sierra Leone: The Role of the Parliament
Rebuilding political legitimacy after civil war and state collapse is a challenging task. This paper looks at the role of the Parliament of Sierra Leone in this process. The analysis is concerned with two key areas: descriptive representation of the electorate to build inclusive politics, and elite reconciliation as a means of making democracy the only game in town. Based on data from a survey among Members of Parliament (MPs) and additional qual…
Presidential Term Limits and Regime Types: When Do Leaders Respect Constitutional Norms
Why do some leaders respect constitutional provisions like presidential term limits, while others do not? For all regimes, constitutions are important reference texts that provide some basic rules of the game. Within this framework, term limits and electoral laws are crucial because they are directly concerned with the exercise of power. Using Geddes' regime typology, this article is proposing a regime-oriented approach to explain the variation o…
Vicious Cycles: Candidate Selection, Vertical Accountability, and MPs' Performance in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone is a successful case of postconflict democratization, but citizens' trust in parliament is low. Using qualitative and quantitative data, this article examines the relationship between MPs and their constituencies. Given the fierceness of the competition at the level of party primaries, aspiring MPs make promises they cannot keep. Confronted with unrealistic expectations, they reduce their presence in the constituency to a minimum. As…
Personal Power in Africa: Legislative Networks and Executive Appointments in Ghana, Togo and Gabon
Personal relations and networks have long been argued to dominate African politics. Since personal power is difficult to measure, much of the literature has remained either anecdotal or has used ethnicity to approximate power distributions. This article is proposing a social network approach to the analysis of personal power in legislatures and cabinets in three cases: Ghana, Togo and Gabon. We combine survey data on parliamentary discussion netw…
Tanzania under Magufuli: The Personalization of a Party-Based Regime
Contemporary research has shown that authoritarian regimes are not static. At the same time, gradual changes are often difficult to detect and the literature has not yet developed convincing tools to identify autocracy-to-autocracy transitions outside the visible ruptures of coups, power transfers, and opposition victories. Building on fieldwork in Tanzania, we show that patterns of rule shifted significantly under Magufuli. Once the model case o…
La connexion entre les partis et les électeurs en Afrique: Le cas Ghanéen
Au Ghana, la compétition politique est globalement libre et transparente. Il y a deux grands partis, le NPP au pouvoir et le NDC du charismatique J.J. Rawlings, ancien président, et quelques petits partis. Cet article s'interroge sur les stratégies de mobilisation des électeurs au Ghana, et applique le concept de linkage, développé par Kay Lawson, au cas ghanéen. L'impact du clientélisme, du patronage et des facteurs historiques déterminant la fo…
Minding the local slot: Municipalities as Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions
Political theory advocates the centrality of trust for democratic legitimacy and stability. It holds that democracy works best if citizens trust governance institutions. From this standpoint, we argue that the local political arena is conducive to nurturing trust, for onward projection onto national institutions. Using a mixed-method approach to a Ghana case study that combines in-depth interviews with regression and a propensity score matching t…
La connexion entre les partis et les électeurs en Afrique: Le cas Ghanéen
Au Ghana, la compétition politique est globalement libre et transparente. Il y a deux grands partis, le NPP au pouvoir et le NDC du charismatique J.J. Rawlings, ancien président, et quelques petits partis. Cet article s'interroge sur les stratégies de mobilisation des électeurs au Ghana, et applique le concept de linkage, développé par Kay Lawson, au cas ghanéen. L'impact du clientélisme, du patronage et des facteurs historiques déterminant la fo…
Reconstructing the Nation in Africa: The Politics of Nationalism in Ghana, Michael Amoah
Party-Voter Linkage in Africa
Party-Voter Linkage in Africa: Ghana and Senegal in Comparative Perspective
Partyvoter Linkage In Africa Ghana And Senegal In Comparative Perspective
Political parties in Ghana: Agents of democracy
Political parties are generally thought of as agents of democracy that fulfil a range of functions, such as policy formulation, interest aggregation and articulation, social integration, and elite recruitment. However, given the weakness of many African parties, are they able to contribute positively to democracy? This article seeks to answer this question by using Ghana – one of Africa's most successful democracies – as a case study. It is found…
Party System Institutionalization in Ghana and Senegal
This paper presents a comparative case study of party system institutionalization in Ghana and Senegal. Both countries experienced a democratic change in government in the year 2000, but while positive development has continued in Ghana, democratic quality in Senegal decreased over time. Can the concept of party institutionalization help to explain this diverging development? Four dimensions of party system institutionalization are systematically…
From Conflict to Consensus? Elite Integration and Democracy in Ghana
The paper takes as its starting point Higley and Burton’s (2006) contention that no liberal democracy has ever evolved without a ‘consensually united elite’ which is structurally integrated and shares some general values. The fact that the evolution of a consensually united elite is a very rare event limits the prospects for the worldwide spread of liberal democracy. Ghana, however, could represent one of these rare cases. This paper looks at if …
Elites and democracy in Ghana: A social network approach
This article presents new theoretical and empirical insights into democratization in Africa, using the typology developed by John Higley and Michael Burton to understand elite interaction in Ghana.Social network analysis (SNA) is used to test the main proposition of the Higley/Burton theory, namely that a 'liberal democracy is impossible without a consensually united elite'.Empirical evidence is provided from a unique data set that maps the inter…
Formal party organisation and informal relations in African parties: Evidence from Ghana
It is often assumed that political parties in Africa have only weak formal structures and are instead dominated by informal, personalised networks. This paper seeks to challenge this view by presenting a much more nuanced picture of intra-party dynamics. Based on unique survey data from Ghana, it is shown how formal and informal party structures co-exist and interact at the national and constituency level. Because informal relationships are not d…
Party, ethnicity, or region? Determinants of informal political exchange in the parliament of Ghana
This article analyzes the patterns of informal political exchange between Ghanaian parliamentarians. Whereas research on Western parliaments identifies the party dimension as the strongest predictor for explaining exchange patterns, we develop three possible theoretical explanations for non-Western legislatures. We try to explain informal political exchange by shared ideology (party), solidarity (ethnicity), or same material interests (region). W…
Like father, like son? Power and influence across two Gnassingbé presidencies in Togo
In personalized authoritarian systems, the death of a leader poses a serious challenge to regime survival. Togo, however, belongs to a small number of countries in which regime collapse has been avoided by the transfer of power to the deceased ruler’s son. But can the son simply pick up where the father left off? Combining a theoretically guided single case study with statistical network analysis, this article argues that hereditary succession in…
Elite Theory and Political Transitions: Networks of Power in Ghana and Togo
Presidential Term Limits and Regime Types: When Do Leaders Respect Constitutional Norms
Why do some leaders respect constitutional provisions like presidential term limits, while others do not? For all regimes, constitutions are important reference texts that provide some basic rules of the game. Within this framework, term limits and electoral laws are crucial because they are directly concerned with the exercise of power. Using Geddes' regime typology, this article is proposing a regime-oriented approach to explain the variation o…
Post-conflict democratisation in Sierra Leone: The Role of the Parliament
Rebuilding political legitimacy after civil war and state collapse is a challenging task. This paper looks at the role of the Parliament of Sierra Leone in this process. The analysis is concerned with two key areas: descriptive representation of the electorate to build inclusive politics, and elite reconciliation as a means of making democracy the only game in town. Based on data from a survey among Members of Parliament (MPs) and additional qual…
Vicious Cycles: Candidate Selection, Vertical Accountability, and MPs' Performance in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone is a successful case of postconflict democratization, but citizens' trust in parliament is low. Using qualitative and quantitative data, this article examines the relationship between MPs and their constituencies. Given the fierceness of the competition at the level of party primaries, aspiring MPs make promises they cannot keep. Confronted with unrealistic expectations, they reduce their presence in the constituency to a minimum. As…
Personal Power in Africa: Legislative Networks and Executive Appointments in Ghana, Togo and Gabon
Personal relations and networks have long been argued to dominate African politics. Since personal power is difficult to measure, much of the literature has remained either anecdotal or has used ethnicity to approximate power distributions. This article is proposing a social network approach to the analysis of personal power in legislatures and cabinets in three cases: Ghana, Togo and Gabon. We combine survey data on parliamentary discussion netw…
Tanzania under Magufuli: The Personalization of a Party-Based Regime
Contemporary research has shown that authoritarian regimes are not static. At the same time, gradual changes are often difficult to detect and the literature has not yet developed convincing tools to identify autocracy-to-autocracy transitions outside the visible ruptures of coups, power transfers, and opposition victories. Building on fieldwork in Tanzania, we show that patterns of rule shifted significantly under Magufuli. Once the model case o…
Introduction: Are Parliamentary Elites in Africa also Power Elites? Researching the Origins and Consequences of Varying Elite Configurations
Elites are an inherent feature of how power is organised in societies.1 Typically, theyconstitute a relatively small group, occupy strategic positions within organisations, havepower over decision-making and enjoy ‘disproportionate privileges and protection’.2Theories of elites have a long history in the fields of Political Science and Sociology, buttheir empirical study crosses disciplinary and methodological boundaries. Scholarly workhas been d…
A Coalition for Change? Role Orientations in the 12th Parliament of Botswana
Botswana's parliamentary democracy features a weak parliament that is ineffective in law making and executive oversight. Conventional explanations emphasise a dominant party system that emerged following independence, lack of operational independence from the executive, and the poor capacity of parliament as factors that undermine its effectiveness. Using a novel dataset that is based on interviews with Members of Parliament (MPs) on a wide range…
Minding the local slot: Municipalities as Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions
Political theory advocates the centrality of trust for democratic legitimacy and stability. It holds that democracy works best if citizens trust governance institutions. From this standpoint, we argue that the local political arena is conducive to nurturing trust, for onward projection onto national institutions. Using a mixed-method approach to a Ghana case study that combines in-depth interviews with regression and a propensity score matching t…
Linkage Matters: Integrating Sexual and Reproductive Health and Substance Use Treatment
The Link Study showed promising gains in provider knowledge, improvements in screening practices, and lasting collaboration across SRH and SUD service sectors. Findings highlight the potential of cross-disciplinary training and technical assistance to build integrated care pathways and strengthen community-based health systems
Personalization, elite cohesion, and regime stability: Differing outcomes in Cameroon and Gabon
Old boys, church mates, childhood friends: How social relations form and sustain the multi-ethnic political elite in Africa
In analysing elite accommodation, political science has often focused on ascriptive attributes such as region or ethnicity. The social foundations of elite networks, however, are more complex. Using original data from Gabon, Benin, Cameroon, Uganda and Botswana, this paper shows that the majority of Members of Parliament have known at least one of their fellow Members of Parliament prior to being elected. Many of these prior contacts stem from jo…
The Role of Social and Symbolic Capital in Electoral Politics: How Social Networks and Parliamentary Debates Influence Re-election in Uganda
Many African legislatures experience high rates of electoral turnover. But who gets re-elected and why? In this article, we employ a Bourdieuan framework to explore how different endowments of legislators with various forms of capital (economic, social, cultural, and symbolic) affect electoral success in Uganda. Using an original dataset with biographical, attitudinal, relational, and performance-related information on Members of the 10th Ugandan…
Political science (21 works) · Politics (19 works) · Law (16 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (16 works) · Political economy (15 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Law (13 works) · Economics (12 works) · Democracy (10 works) · Elite (10 works)