Democracy and Elections in Africa
Author: Staffan I. Lindberg
Publisher: JHU Press
Published: 2006-09-11
Total Pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9780801883323
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Why Do Elections Matter in Africa?
Author: Nic Cheeseman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2021-02-18
Total Pages: 377
ISBN-13: 110841723X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA radical new approach to understanding Africa's elections: explaining why politicians, bureaucrats and voters so frequently break electoral rules.
Democracy in Africa
Author: Nic Cheeseman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2015-05-12
Total Pages: 269
ISBN-13: 1316239489
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis 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 why democratic governments often make bad policy decisions. Beginning in the colonial period with the introduction of multi-party elections and ending in 2013 with the collapse of democracy in Mali and South Sudan, the book describes the rise of authoritarian states in the 1970s; the attempts of trade unions and some religious groups to check the abuse of power in the 1980s; the remarkable return of multiparty politics in the 1990s; and finally, the tragic tendency for elections to exacerbate corruption and violence.
Electoral Politics in Africa since 1990
Author: Jaimie Bleck
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2018-11-29
Total Pages: 345
ISBN-13: 1108680623
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDemocratic transitions in the early 1990s introduced a sea change in Sub-Saharan African politics. Between 1990 and 2015, several hundred competitive legislative and presidential elections were held in all but a handful of the region's countries. This book is the first comprehensive comparative analysis of the key issues, actors, and trends in these elections over the last quarter century. The book asks: what motivates African citizens to vote? What issues do candidates campaign on? How has the turn to regular elections promoted greater democracy? Has regular electoral competition made a difference for the welfare of citizens? The authors argue that regular elections have both caused significant changes in African politics and been influenced in turn by a rapidly changing continent - even if few of the political systems that now convene elections can be considered democratic, and even if many old features of African politics persist.
Elections and Conflict Management in Africa
Author: Timothy D. Sisk
Publisher: US Institute of Peace Press
Published: 1998
Total Pages: 244
ISBN-13: 9781878379795
DOWNLOAD EBOOKElections have emerged as one of the most important, and most contentious, features of political life on the African continent. In the first half of this decade, there were more than 20 national elections, serving largely as capstones of peace processes or transitions to democracies. The outcomes of these and more recent elections have been remarkably varied, and the relationship between elections and conflict management is widely debated throughout Africa and among international observers. Elections can either help reduce tensions by reconstituting legitimate government, or they can exacerbate them by further polarizing highly conflictual societies. This timely volume examines the relationship between elections, especially electoral systems, and conflict management in Africa, while also serving as an important reference for other regions. The book brings together for the first time the latest thinking on the many different roles elections can play in democratization and conflict management.
Growing Democracy in Africa
Author: Mamoudou Gazibo
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Published: 2016-02-08
Total Pages: 375
ISBN-13: 1443888443
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhat is the state of governance in sub-Saharan Africa? Is it possible to identify the best practices and approaches to establishing political systems that promote accountability, transparency, peace, and civic space for all? These are the questions addressed in this book. While the concept of governance is considered to be central to political science, our understanding of it is still imprecise, with extant studies focused primarily either on think-tank indicators, economic management, or political studies of democratization. This book critically examines the record on democratization in Africa thus far, and seeks a new, integrated, focused approach to the study of governance. Such an approach requires revisiting the concept of governance itself, with emphasis on certain decisive components and critical issues. Considered in a democratic framework, the concept of governance can be employed to cast light on accountability issues in several arenas, four of which are considered in detail in this volume: institutions and the rule of law; constitution-making, elections, and political conflict settlement; distribution of power and citizenship; and political economy and corruption. Each contribution offers particular insights in one of these arenas. With a huge and varied continent in rapid flux to study, the sheer amount and variety of interesting new research is enormous. It is expected that the discussions contained herein and the various challenges, achievements, and lessons outlined will contribute to research, inform teaching, and lead to a greater understanding of the issues of democratic consolidation and economic development in Africa.
Violence in African Elections
Author: Mimmi Söderberg Kovacs
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
Published: 2018-04-15
Total Pages: 401
ISBN-13: 1786992310
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMultiparty elections have become the bellwether by which all democracies are judged, and the spread of these systems across Africa has been widely hailed as a sign of the continent’s progress towards stability and prosperity. But such elections bring their own challenges, particularly the often intense internecine violence following disputed results. While the consequences of such violence can be profound, undermining the legitimacy of the democratic process and in some cases plunging countries into civil war or renewed dictatorship, little is known about the causes. By mapping, analysing and comparing instances of election violence in different localities across Africa – including Kenya, Ivory Coast and Uganda – this collection of detailed case studies sheds light on the underlying dynamics and sub-national causes behind electoral conflicts, revealing them to be the result of a complex interplay between democratisation and the older, patronage-based system of ‘Big Man’ politics. Essential for scholars and policymakers across the social sciences and humanities interested in democratization, peace-keeping and peace studies, Violence in African Elections provides important insights into why some communities prove more prone to electoral violence than others, offering practical suggestions for preventing violence through improved electoral monitoring, voter education, and international assistance.
Social Media and Elections in Africa, Volume 1
Author: Martin N. Ndlela
Publisher: Springer Nature
Published: 2020-01-02
Total Pages: 246
ISBN-13: 3030305538
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book brings together fresh evidence and new theoretical frameworks in a unique analysis of the increasing role of social media in political campaigns and electoral processes across Africa. Supported by contemporary and historical cases studies, it engages with the main drives behind the various appropriations of social media for election campaigns, organization, and voter mobilization. Contributors in this volume delve into changing and complex aspects of social media, offering an appraisal of theoretical perspectives and examining fascinating case studies which social media use is redefining elections across Africa. Contributions show that new media ecologies are resulting in new policy regimes, user behaviors, and communication models that have implications for electoral processes. The book also provides preliminary analysis of emerging forms of algorithm-driven campaigns, fake news, information distortions and other methods that undermine electoral democracy in Africa.
Voting and Democratic Citizenship in Africa
Author: Michael Bratton
Publisher: Lynne Rienner Pub
Published: 2013
Total Pages: 323
ISBN-13: 9781588268945
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHow do individual Africans view competitive elections? How do they behave at election time? What are the implications of new forms of popular participation for citizenship and democracy? Drawing on a decade of research from the cross-national Afrobarometer project, the authors of this seminal collection explore the emerging role of mass politics in Africa¿s fledgling democracies.
Democracy, Elections, and Constitutionalism in Africa
Author: Charles M. Fombad
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2021-03-11
Total Pages: 577
ISBN-13: 0192894773
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis volume examines democracy and elections in Africa, taking stock of the state of constitutional democracy on the continent after the democratic gains of the 1990s and 2000s, focusing on how competitive politics or multiparty democracy can be realized and how, through competition, such politics could lead to better policy and practice outcomes.
