Nic Cheeseman
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 118686 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Nic Cheeseman |
| PRENOMES | Nic |
| SOBRENOME | Cheeseman |
| ASSINATURA | CHEESEMAN N |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Birmingham |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0922-7514 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 111 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 732 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 59 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 52 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2006 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 16 |
Rethinking Pathways of Autocratisation and Democratic Resilience in Comparative Perspective
This review article examines the rise of democratic resilience as a central concept in the comparative study of regime stability and change. Over the past decade, resilience – understood not simply as institutional survival but as the capacity of democratic systems to adapt, regenerate and deepen democratic norms in the face of crises – has gained prominence in response to accelerating autocratisation. The article situates this shift within the d…
The Myth of Democratic Resilience
Recent accounts of democratic “U-turns” in countries such as Bangladesh, Brazil and Poland overstate the extent of democratic resilience. Analyzing a database of countries that have gone from being democratic to authoritarian and back again since 1994 reveals that almost all failed to sustain their recoveries, a reality this essay argues is driven primarily by the lasting impact of authoritarian episodes and the incentives new governments face to…
Opening the door to anti‐system leaders? Anti‐corruption campaigns and the global rise of populism
Almost all anti‐corruption drives contain an awareness raising element. However, recent research reveals that anti‐corruption awareness raising messages can backfire by triggering a sense that corruption is too big of a problem to tackle, thus encouraging resignation rather than resistance. We advance this literature by exploring another potential unintended impact. Corruption scandals have played a prominent role in the rise of many populist lea…
When Money Can't Buy Political Love
Citizens who reject bribery in the context of democratic political processes might view the exchange of money for votes as illegitimate, even if they enjoy reciprocal relationships with politicians in other contexts. We test this by using lab-in-the-field experiments in Ghana and Uganda. Participants play the roles of voters and of candidates who have opportunities to bribe. Voters are more likely to vote for a candidate who had the opportunity t…
Getting the message right
Counter-serious and organised crime (SOC) strategies often include an awareness-raising element. Such messaging aims to build support for counter-SOC efforts, and intolerance for organised criminal activity. However, a growing body of research suggests that raising awareness to ‘social bads’ like SOC may risk backfiring by encouraging pessimistic attitudes about whether they can be controlled and could even nudge people to agree with populist nar…
Blondel’s African Presidential Republics
The debate on the ‘perils of presidentialism’ has been raging for over 30 years and gone through at least three waves. It began with the influential work of Juan Linz and most recently has seen the emergence of a rich literature on coalitional presidentialism, which has demonstrated the capacity of presidents to manage fragmented multi-party legislatures, and hence overcome the dangers of political deadlock. Jean Blondel’s last book (African Pres…
Foreign aid withdrawals and suspensions
In this introduction to the special issue, “Foreign Aid Withdrawals and Suspensions: Why, When and Are They Effective,” we both summarize the current state of the literature and outline a robust new agenda for studying aid suspensions and withdrawals. A common contribution of the papers in this special issue is that they emphasize that donors and aid-recipient states have more options available to them than previous literature has allowed and tha…
The battle for Central
In Kenya’s 2022 general elections, presidential candidate William Ruto did something unusual – he dominated the vote in the heartlands of one of his main political rivals, President Uhuru Kenyatta. In turn, Ruto’s ability to win power by mobilizing support outside of his own Kalenjin community has led to speculation that the political power of ethnicity is waning. Drawing on surveys, economic and demographic analysis and interviews during the cam…
Has Kenya democratized? Institutional strengthening and contingency in the 2022 general elections
Kenya’s 2022 general elections saw – for only the second time in the country’s history – a transfer of power from a retiring president to a candidate that they had not backed. Moreover, despite accusations of electoral malpractice, the Supreme Court upheld the results, relatively few petitions were submitted for lower-level races, and political unrest around the election itself was relatively minor. This has led some commentators to speculate tha…
Defending Civic Space
Many civil society organizations (CSOs) are fighting for survival as governments introduce legislation to curtail their activities. This article examines how domestic civil society campaigns can persuade parliamentarians to reject ‘anti-CSO’ legislation. We employ pairwise comparisons in two regions – East Africa and Central Asia – as well as process-tracing within four cases: two successful campaigns waged by CSO coalitions against repressive le…
Why efforts to fight corruption can undermine the social contract
Anticorruption awareness raising efforts are designed to encourage citizens to resist and report corruption but have been found to either not work or have unwanted effects—including increasing bribe payment. This article represents the first test of whether these efforts also undermine critical aspects of a society's social contract, namely, willingness to pay tax. Using a household level survey experiment in Lagos, Nigeria, we assess whether exp…
Kenya Virtual Issue
Notes on researching Africa
The research methods used to study Africa have changed radically over the last thirty years. In the 1970s, the vast majority of historical, political, and anthropological work on the continent was predominantly qualitative. Whilst theoretical influences were diverse, and reflected contemporary debates between liberals and realists, Marxists and pan-Africanists, much work in African studies was primarily empirical and mainly relied on archival, in…
The Curse of Good Intentions
Awareness-raising messages feature prominently in most anticorruption strategies. Yet, there has been limited systematic research into their efficacy. There is growing concern that anticorruption awareness-raising efforts may be backfiring; instead of encouraging citizens to resist corruption, they may be nudging them to "go with the corrupt grain." This study offers a first test of the effect of anticorruption messaging on ordinary people's beha…
(Mis)Understanding Urban Africa
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The Moral Economy of Elections in Africa
Do elections turn people into democratic citizens? Elections have long been seen as a way to foster democracy, development and security in Africa, with many hoping that the secret ballot would transform states. Adopting a new approach that focusses on the moral economy of elections, Nic Cheeseman, Gabrielle Lynch and Justin Willis show how elections are shaped by competing visions of what it means to be a good leader, bureaucrat or citizen. Using…
African exceptions
Tanzania
The flawed 2020 Tanzanian elections are typically blamed on an authoritarian turn instigated by the late President John Magufuli (1959–2021). This articles argues that focusing excessively on Magufuli obscures the authoritarian foundations of CCM rule: The strategies used to maintain political control under his tenure have deep roots, and have not taken CCM off a democratizing path it was never on in the first place. This conclusion underlines th…
African Studies Keyword
Democracy is one of the most contested words in the English language. In Africa, these complexities are compounded by the question of whether democracy is a colonial imposition. Cheeseman and Sishuwa provide a historiography of debates around democracy, track how these narratives have developed over time, and argue that there is widespread public support for a form of what they call "consensual democracy." This is not to say that democracy is uni…
Sexual-minority rights and activism
This chapter offers an overview of the legal, political, and social position of sexual minorities in Kenya. Current developments are illustrated through the lens of public narratives. The chapter provides a comparison between master and counter-narratives. Master narratives rely on cultural scripts of homosexuality being illegal, immoral, and against African values, and are reproduced through religious arguments and performative political spectac…
Chiefs, elders, and traditional authority
For over a century, Kenya’s chiefs have served as central figures in the formation and implementation of state bureaucracy. Inextricably linked with the colonial and post-colonial state, Kenya’s chiefs are not representative of traditional forms of authority in the way that elders may be said to be, but are rather an embodiment of the state’s bureaucratic apparatus. As a key component of Kenyan bureaucracy through their position in provincial adm…
The science, suspicion, and sustainability of opinion polls
The past 30 years have seen political surveys, particularly those related to elections, evolve from an occasional novelty to a staple feature of the Kenyan political scene. This chapter considers several issues with regard to these surveys. These include: (1) the practical challenges in conducting them as well as recent technological advances; (2) the reasons why a high level of suspicion is often attached to election polls in particular, and the…
The informal economy and its relationship with the state
This chapter examines the function of the informal economy in Kenya and the shifting government responses to it through a review of key policies and documents from 1971 to 2017. As in many African states, the Kenyan informal economy is a critical source of employment and economic activity, providing 80 percent of new jobs in an average year. The key finding of this chapter is that the Kenyan government has undertaken a number of initiatives to su…
The political role of Islam
This chapter discusses Muslim politics in the context of wider debates about political inclusion and exclusion in Kenya. It submits that a common narrative of exclusion and injustice amongst Kenya’s minority Muslim population exists, but that an imagined political community of Muslims has failed to emerge. In part, this is due to ethnic, racial, class, and doctrinal differences. It is also due to different understandings of what needs to be done …
The 2013 elections and the peace narrative (2013–2015)
While disputes have always accompanied Kenya’s electoral processes, the 2007 general elections shook the country’s foundations. The ensuing debate pitted those who wanted to focus on truth and justice against those who prioritized peace, with two competing narratives dominating discussions around the subsequent elections in 2013. First, that Kenya needed to do everything possible to avoid a repeat of the 2007/8 post-election violence; and second,…
Rethinking the ‘presidentialism debate
The democratization literature has increased our understanding of the role of institutional variables in the study of democratic sustainability. Debates about the dangers of presidentialism have been central to this body of research. In more recent times the presidentialism literature has focused on the capacity of presidents to overcome the conflict-inducing nature of the separation of powers through successful coalition formation. This review a…
The Kenyan Elections of 2007
The importance of the Kenya crisis for the African continent is not that Kenya may become 'another Rwanda', but that it reveals how fragile Africa's new multi-party systems may be when weak institutions, historical grievances, the normalization of violence, and a lack of elite consensus on the 'rules of the game', collide. This paper provides an overview of the election campaign and the results, highlighting the major areas of continuity and chan…
African Elections as Vehicles for Change
Although government defeats are extremely rare in multiparty Africa, little analysis has taken place of the conditions under which ruling parties lose power. This article documents a remarkable pattern that has so far received little comment: throughout the continent opposition parties are almost four times more likely to win elections when the sitting president does not stand. Using a comparative data-set and examples from Kenya, Ghana, and Sier…
Democracy and its discontents
In the months leading up to Kenya's general election in March 2013, there was much concern – both within Kenya itself and internationally – that political competition would trigger a fresh wave of ethnic violence. However, the 2013 elections passed off largely peacefully, despite an unexpected presidential result and fact that the losing candidate, Raila Odinga, appealed the outcome to the Supreme Court. This article argues that Kenya avoided pol…
Decentralisation in Kenya
Kenya's March 2013 elections ushered in a popular system of devolved government that represented the country's biggest political transformation since independence. Yet within months there were public calls for a referendum to significantly revise the new arrangements. This article analyses the campaign that was led by the newly elected governors in order to understand the ongoing disputes over the introduction of decentralisation in Kenya, and wh…
The politics of control in Kenya
Colonial rule in Kenya witnessed the emergence of a profoundly unbalanced institutional landscape. With all capacity resided in a strong prefectural provincial administration, political parties remained underdeveloped. The co-option of sympathetic African elites during the colonial twilight into the bureaucracy, the legislature and the private property-based economy meant that the allies of colonialism and representatives of transnational capital…
Democratization, sequencing, and state failure in Africa
In order to complement ongoing current empirical research, this article draws wider lessons from the crisis that grew out of the disputed Kenyan presidential election of December 2007. Looking beyond the immediate trigger for the subsequent violence – namely, the election itself – the paper instead locates the roots of the crisis within three historical trends: elite fragmentation, political liberalization, and state informalization.The origins o…
Ethnopopulism in Africa
At first glance, ethnically based and populist forms of mobilization appear to be contradictory and ultimately mutually exclusive phenomena. Appealing to voters on the basis of a shared sense of economic grievance against powerful or wealthy sections of society does not fit well with the emphasis on sectional divisions that is required to rally support on the basis of ethnicity or region. Yet over the past ten years a number of opposition politic…
Parties, Platforms, and Political Mobilization
Journal Article Parties, Platforms, and Political Mobilization: The Zambian Presidential Election of 2008 Get access Nic Cheeseman, Nic Cheeseman Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Marja Hinfelaar Marja Hinfelaar * Nic Cheeseman ([email protected]) is University Lecturer in African Studies and Hugh Price Fellow, Jesus College, Oxford University. Marja Hinfelaar ([email protected]) i…
Digital dilemmas
Digital technologies are increasingly used in elections around the world. Where the resources and capacity of the state are limited, some have argued that such technologies make it possible to rapidly “leapfrog” to cleaner and more credible elections. This article argues that the growing use of these technologies has been driven by the fetishization of technology rather than by rigorous assessment of their effectiveness; that they may create sign…
Power-sharing in comparative perspective
This paper draws on the recent experience of Kenya and Zimbabwe to demonstrate how power-sharing has played out in Africa. Although the two cases share some superficial similarities, variation in the strength and disposition of key veto players generated radically different contexts that shaped the feasibility and impact of unity government. Explaining the number and attitude of veto players requires a comparative analysis of the evolution of civ…
Kenya's 2017 elections
This article asks what Kenya’s 2017 general elections tell us about the capacity of a new constitution to reduce the stakes of political competition and prospects of political instability. Three constitutional changes are particularly important: the adoption of a 50% + 1 threshold for the presidential election; the devolution of power to 47 county governments; and the introduction of a Supreme Court with the right to hear presidential electoral p…
The internal dynamics of power-sharing in Africa
Given the increasing use of power-sharing arrangements to manage a wide range of political crises over the past five years it is more important than ever to turn a critical eye on the dynamics and outcomes of unity governments. This paper argues that two key factors shape the way that power-sharing functions in Africa: the distribution of violence (that is, whether any one party has a monopoly on victimhood or whether all parties have committed, …
Social Media Disruption
How are social media and digital technology shaping elections? This question is more important than ever, yet few studies look at WhatsApp's impact on the political landscape—even in Africa, where it is the dominant messaging platform. This article combines a case study of Nigeria's 2019 elections with surveys and analysis from Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Sierra Leone to show how social media are used by parties, candidates and voters. We conclude …
The Curse of Good Intentions
Awareness-raising messages feature prominently in most anticorruption strategies. Yet, there has been limited systematic research into their efficacy. There is growing concern that anticorruption awareness-raising efforts may be backfiring; instead of encouraging citizens to resist corruption, they may be nudging them to "go with the corrupt grain." This study offers a first test of the effect of anticorruption messaging on ordinary people's beha…
Zimbabwe
On 14 november 2017, the Zimbabwean military launched ‘Operation Restore Legacy' in a bid to force President Robert Mugabe out of office and facilitate a transfer of power to his former Vice President, Emmerson Mnangagwa. The intervention was triggered by Mugabe’s move to sideline senior military figures—including army chief Constantino Chiwenga—and to sack one of their closest political allies, Mnangagwa, just over a week earlier. The president …
Tanzania
The flawed 2020 Tanzanian elections are typically blamed on an authoritarian turn instigated by the late President John Magufuli (1959–2021). This articles argues that focusing excessively on Magufuli obscures the authoritarian foundations of CCM rule: The strategies used to maintain political control under his tenure have deep roots, and have not taken CCM off a democratizing path it was never on in the first place. This conclusion underlines th…
Ghana
Despite pre-election fears, the victory of the opposition NPP over the ruling NDC in Ghana’s December 2016 elections became the prologue to a peaceful transfer of power, an outcome which suggests that the advantage of incumbency in African elections may be on the wane. Recent transfers of power in Africa have been driven by deteriorating economic conditions, opposition learning, more effective and dynamic electoral processes, and increasingly ass…
Foreign aid withdrawals and suspensions
In this introduction to the special issue, “Foreign Aid Withdrawals and Suspensions: Why, When and Are They Effective,” we both summarize the current state of the literature and outline a robust new agenda for studying aid suspensions and withdrawals. A common contribution of the papers in this special issue is that they emphasize that donors and aid-recipient states have more options available to them than previous literature has allowed and tha…
Voting, Nationhood, and Citizenship in Late-Colonial Africa
In the face of considerable scepticism from some British commentators, elections by secret ballot and adult suffrage emerged as central features of the end of British rule in Africa. This article considers the trajectories of electoral politics in three territories – Ghana (Gold Coast), Kenya, and Uganda. It shows that in each of these, the ballot box came to provide a point of convergence for the disparate ambitions of nationalist politicians, c…
The Myth of Democratic Resilience
Recent accounts of democratic “U-turns” in countries such as Bangladesh, Brazil and Poland overstate the extent of democratic resilience. Analyzing a database of countries that have gone from being democratic to authoritarian and back again since 1994 reveals that almost all failed to sustain their recoveries, a reality this essay argues is driven primarily by the lasting impact of authoritarian episodes and the incentives new governments face to…
Introduction
The continuing importance of Kenya's institutional colonial inheritance has been underestimated because the impact of decolonization on Kenya's formal political institutions has rarely been systematically addressed. Consequently, there is a pressing need to reevaluate the structure of government in the colonial and postcolonial periods in a manner that takes a critical perspective on the domestic relationship between government and opposition. In…
Why efforts to fight corruption can undermine the social contract
Anticorruption awareness raising efforts are designed to encourage citizens to resist and report corruption but have been found to either not work or have unwanted effects—including increasing bribe payment. This article represents the first test of whether these efforts also undermine critical aspects of a society's social contract, namely, willingness to pay tax. Using a household level survey experiment in Lagos, Nigeria, we assess whether exp…
Opening the door to anti‐system leaders? Anti‐corruption campaigns and the global rise of populism
Almost all anti‐corruption drives contain an awareness raising element. However, recent research reveals that anti‐corruption awareness raising messages can backfire by triggering a sense that corruption is too big of a problem to tackle, thus encouraging resignation rather than resistance. We advance this literature by exploring another potential unintended impact. Corruption scandals have played a prominent role in the rise of many populist lea…
African Studies Keyword
Democracy is one of the most contested words in the English language. In Africa, these complexities are compounded by the question of whether democracy is a colonial imposition. Cheeseman and Sishuwa provide a historiography of debates around democracy, track how these narratives have developed over time, and argue that there is widespread public support for a form of what they call "consensual democracy." This is not to say that democracy is uni…
The politics of control in Kenya
Colonial rule in Kenya witnessed the emergence of a profoundly unbalanced institutional landscape. With all capacity resided in a strong prefectural provincial administration, political parties remained underdeveloped. The co-option of sympathetic African elites during the colonial twilight into the bureaucracy, the legislature and the private property-based economy meant that the allies of colonialism and representatives of transnational capital…
Introduction
The continuing importance of Kenya's institutional colonial inheritance has been underestimated because the impact of decolonization on Kenya's formal political institutions has rarely been systematically addressed. Consequently, there is a pressing need to reevaluate the structure of government in the colonial and postcolonial periods in a manner that takes a critical perspective on the domestic relationship between government and opposition. In…
Democracy and Elections in Africa (review)
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Democratization, sequencing, and state failure in Africa
In order to complement ongoing current empirical research, this article draws wider lessons from the crisis that grew out of the disputed Kenyan presidential election of December 2007. Looking beyond the immediate trigger for the subsequent violence – namely, the election itself – the paper instead locates the roots of the crisis within three historical trends: elite fragmentation, political liberalization, and state informalization.The origins o…
The Kenyan Elections of 2007
The importance of the Kenya crisis for the African continent is not that Kenya may become 'another Rwanda', but that it reveals how fragile Africa's new multi-party systems may be when weak institutions, historical grievances, the normalization of violence, and a lack of elite consensus on the 'rules of the game', collide. This paper provides an overview of the election campaign and the results, highlighting the major areas of continuity and chan…
Turning Points in African Democracy
African Elections as Vehicles for Change
Although government defeats are extremely rare in multiparty Africa, little analysis has taken place of the conditions under which ruling parties lose power. This article documents a remarkable pattern that has so far received little comment: throughout the continent opposition parties are almost four times more likely to win elections when the sitting president does not stand. Using a comparative data-set and examples from Kenya, Ghana, and Sier…
Parties, Platforms, and Political Mobilization
Journal Article Parties, Platforms, and Political Mobilization: The Zambian Presidential Election of 2008 Get access Nic Cheeseman, Nic Cheeseman Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Marja Hinfelaar Marja Hinfelaar * Nic Cheeseman ([email protected]) is University Lecturer in African Studies and Hugh Price Fellow, Jesus College, Oxford University. Marja Hinfelaar ([email protected]) i…
Power-sharing in comparative perspective
This paper draws on the recent experience of Kenya and Zimbabwe to demonstrate how power-sharing has played out in Africa. Although the two cases share some superficial similarities, variation in the strength and disposition of key veto players generated radically different contexts that shaped the feasibility and impact of unity government. Explaining the number and attitude of veto players requires a comparative analysis of the evolution of civ…
The internal dynamics of power-sharing in Africa
Given the increasing use of power-sharing arrangements to manage a wide range of political crises over the past five years it is more important than ever to turn a critical eye on the dynamics and outcomes of unity governments. This paper argues that two key factors shape the way that power-sharing functions in Africa: the distribution of violence (that is, whether any one party has a monopoly on victimhood or whether all parties have committed, …
Does the African middle class defend democracy? Evidence from Kenya
Barrington Moore’s famous line ‘no bourgeoisie, no democracy’ is one of the most quoted claims in political science. But has the rise of the African middle class promoted democratic consolidation? This paper uses the case of Kenya to investigate the attitudes and behaviours of the middle class. Analysis of Afrobarometer survey data reveals that the middle class is more likely to support the opposition and hold pro-democratic attitudes. This sugge…
Democracy and its discontents
In the months leading up to Kenya's general election in March 2013, there was much concern – both within Kenya itself and internationally – that political competition would trigger a fresh wave of ethnic violence. However, the 2013 elections passed off largely peacefully, despite an unexpected presidential result and fact that the losing candidate, Raila Odinga, appealed the outcome to the Supreme Court. This article argues that Kenya avoided pol…
Rethinking the ‘presidentialism debate
The democratization literature has increased our understanding of the role of institutional variables in the study of democratic sustainability. Debates about the dangers of presidentialism have been central to this body of research. In more recent times the presidentialism literature has focused on the capacity of presidents to overcome the conflict-inducing nature of the separation of powers through successful coalition formation. This review a…
Dedication
As this special issue went to press we received the sad news that Professor Joel Barkan, one of the leading scholars of Kenya for over 40 years, had passed away.Joel was an inspiration and mentor to many students of Kenya both because his work on elections, MPs and the legislature broke new ground, and because he was always willing to share his knowledge and experience with others.He was that rare combination: a great person
Democracy in Africa
This book provides the first comprehensive overview of the history of democracy in Africa and explains why the continent's democratic experiments have so often failed, as well as how they could succeed. Nic Cheeseman grapples with some of the most important questions facing Africa and democracy today, including whether international actors should try and promote democracy abroad, how to design political systems that manage ethnic diversity, and w…
Ethnopopulism in Africa
At first glance, ethnically based and populist forms of mobilization appear to be contradictory and ultimately mutually exclusive phenomena. Appealing to voters on the basis of a shared sense of economic grievance against powerful or wealthy sections of society does not fit well with the emphasis on sectional divisions that is required to rally support on the basis of ethnicity or region. Yet over the past ten years a number of opposition politic…
Accommodation Works Better for Reducing Conflict
Notes1. Julius Nyerere in Tanzania and Sir Seretse Khama in Botswana are important exceptions
Decentralisation in Kenya
Kenya's March 2013 elections ushered in a popular system of devolved government that represented the country's biggest political transformation since independence. Yet within months there were public calls for a referendum to significantly revise the new arrangements. This article analyses the campaign that was led by the newly elected governors in order to understand the ongoing disputes over the introduction of decentralisation in Kenya, and wh…
Patrons, Parties, Political Linkage, and the Birth of Competitive-Authoritarianism in Africa
Few scholars have taught us more about African voters, legislators, and legislatures than Joel Barkan. Drawing on Barkan's analysis, the first part of this article argues that the African one-party state can be usefully viewed as a competitive-authoritarian system underpinned by a form of political linkage that allows for elements of coercion and competition. Building on this framework, the second part demonstrates that the political linkage stru…
Power-sharing in Kenya
This chapter draws upon Cheeseman's fieldwork and interviews in Kenya before, during and after the implementation of the power-sharing government and Murray's involvement in the constitution-making process. It examines the historical and constitutional background to the power-sharing agreement, and explains the roots of the 'Kenya crisis' of 2007/2008. The chapter evaluates the successes and failures of the power-sharing deal, including the 2010 …
Trust, Ethnicity and Integrity in East Africa
Political economy comparisons of Kenya and Tanzania have often found the political salience of ethnicity to be far higher in the former than the latter, with a negative impact on intercommunal trust. This difference has tended to be explained on the basis of the different kinds of leadership that the two countries experienced after independence. However, these findings have typically been demonstrated using aggregate or survey data. This paper as…
Ghana
Despite pre-election fears, the victory of the opposition NPP over the ruling NDC in Ghana’s December 2016 elections became the prologue to a peaceful transfer of power, an outcome which suggests that the advantage of incumbency in African elections may be on the wane. Recent transfers of power in Africa have been driven by deteriorating economic conditions, opposition learning, more effective and dynamic electoral processes, and increasingly ass…
Introduction to the Special Issue
Introduction to the Special Issue:Women, Leadership, and Peace in Africa Nic Cheeseman (bio), Francis Onditi (bio), and Cristina D'Alessandro (bio) INTRODUCTION: WOMEN AND LEADERSHIP IN AFRICA Are women empowered enough to make peace in Africa? Despite over two decades of multiparty politics, the answer appears to be "no," if we start by looking at the formal political realm. In general, women remain marginalized within African political systems.…
La machine électorale
Les élections mettent en jeu plusieurs types de représentations publiques de l'ordre, que ce soit durant les campagnes ou au fil des processus bureaucratiques entourant la tenue des scrutins. Cet article s'intéresse à un élément clé de l'élection, à savoir la culture matérielle du bureau de vote et les processus qui lui sont associés. Il en dissèque les pratiques, leurs continuités et transformations dans trois pays de l'Afrique postcoloniale : l…
A valid electoral exercise'? Uganda's 1980 Elections and the Observers' Dilemma
The presence at Uganda's 1980 general elections of a Commonwealth Observer Group might be seen as a seminal moment. This was the first formal international observation of polls in a sovereign African state and the precursor of multiple similar missions that later became routine. Yet the 1980 mission sits uneasily in the history of election observation. The observers endorsed the results despite evidence of malpractice, and Uganda plunged into civ…
Political science (105 obras) · Politics (89 obras) · Law (88 obras) · Sociology (75 obras) · Political economy (65 obras) · Economics (53 obras) · Democracy (39 obras) · Political Conflict and Governance (36 obras) · Law (30 obras) · Public Administration (30 obras)