For more than seventy years, authoritarian rule was the dominant form of government in sub-Saharan Africa. Three-quarters of African states have experienced some form of one-party or military rule since 1945. Accessible and engaging, Authoritarian Africa: Repression, Resistance, and the Power of Ideas is the first book to examine this subject from a historical perspective. Exploring the history and legacy of authoritarianism in Africa--from the colonial era until the onset of democracy in the early 1990s--it introduces students to the variety of authoritarian regimes that have existed on the continent, including one-party states, military rule, and personal dictatorships. This unique text also provides essential new insights, revising the traditional "story" of African authoritarianism by drawing on primary source materials (from songs to statistics) to provide a fresh, original perspective. Looking at what sustained authoritarian rule in Africa over more than a century, the authors consider the phenomenon on its own terms--not simply as a way station on the road to democracy--and in the context of the continent's social, political, intellectual, and economic history.

Authoritarian Africa: Repression, Resistance, and the Power of Ideas (African World Histories)

History

FISHER, JONATHAN

Cheeseman, Nic

Africa

Oxford University Press

Coalitional Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective: Minority Presidents in Multiparty Systems (Oxford Studies in Democratization)

This book provides the first cross-regional study of an increasingly important form of politics: coalitional presidentialism. Drawing on original research of minority presidents in the democratising and hybrid regimes of Armenia, Benin, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Kenya, Malawi, Russia, and Ukraine, it seeks to understand how presidents who lack single party legislative majorities build and manage cross-party support in legislative assemblies. It develops a framework for analysing this phenomenon, and blends data from MP surveys, detailed case studies, and wider legislative and political contexts, to analyse systematically the tools that presidents deploy to manage their coalitions. The authors focus on five key legislative, cabinet, partisan, budget, and informal (exchange of favours) tools that are utilised by minority presidents. They contend that these constitute the 'toolbox' for coalition management, and argue that minority presidents will act with imperfect or incomplete information to deploy tools that provide the highest return of political support with the lowest expenditure of political capital. In developing this analysis, the book assembles a set of concepts, definitions, indicators, analytical frameworks, and propositions that establish the main parameters of coalitional presidentialism. In this way, Coalitional Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective provides crucial insights into this mode of governance. Oxford Studies in Democratization is a series for scholars and students of comparative politics and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on the comparative study of the democratization process that accompanied the decline and termination of the cold war. The geographical focus of the series is primarily Latin America, the Caribbean, Southern and Eastern Europe, and relevant experiences in Africa and Asia. The series editor is Laurence Whitehead, Senior Research Fellow, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.

Chaisty, Paul

Power, Timothy J.

Legal Theory & Systems

An engrossing analysis of the pseudo-democratic methods employed by despots around the world to retain control Contrary to what is commonly believed, authoritarian leaders who agree to hold elections are generally able to remain in power longer than autocrats who refuse to allow the populace to vote. In this engaging and provocative book, Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas expose the limitations of national elections as a means of promoting democratization, and reveal the six essential strategies that dictators use to undermine the electoral process in order to guarantee victory for themselves. Based on their firsthand experiences as election watchers and their hundreds of interviews with presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, election officials, and conspirators, Cheeseman and Klaas document instances of election rigging from Argentina to Zimbabwe, including notable examples from Brazil, India, Nigeria, Russia, and the United States—touching on the 2016 election. This eye-opening study offers a sobering overview of corrupted professional politics, while providing fertile intellectual ground for the development of new solutions for protecting democracy from authoritarian subversion.

How to Rig an Election

Klaas, Brian

Yale University Press

Democracy in Africa: Successes, Failures, and the Struggle for Political Reform (New Approaches to African History, Series Number 9)

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 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.

Cambridge University Press

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 a mixed-methods study of elections in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda, they explore moral claims made by officials, politicians, civil society, international observers and voters themselves. This radical new lens reveals that elections are the site of intense moral contestation, which helps to explain why there is such vigourous participation in processes that often seem flawed. Demonstrating the impact of these debates on six decades of electoral practice, they explain why the behaviour of those involved so frequently transgresses national law and international norms, as well as the ways in which such transgressions are evaluated and critiqued – so that despite the purported significance of 'vote-buying', the candidates that spend the most do not always win.

The Moral Economy of Elections in Africa

Constitutional Law

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 a mixed-methods study of elections in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda, they explore moral claims made by officials, politicians, civil society, international observers and voters themselves. This radical new lens reveals that elections are the site of intense moral contestation, which helps to explain why there is such vigourous participation in processes that often seem flawed. Demonstrating the impact of these debates on six decades of electoral practice, they explain why the behaviour of those involved so frequently transgresses national law and international norms, as well as the ways in which such transgressions are evaluated and critiqued - so that despite the purported significance of 'vote-buying', the candidates that spend the most do not always win.

The Moral Economy of Elections in Africa: Democracy, Voting and Virtue

Willis, Justin

Lynch, Gabrielle

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cheeseman, Nic. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cheeseman, Nic

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cheeseman, Nic. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Authoritarian Africa: Repression, Resistance, and the Power of Ideas (African World Histories)

Coalitional Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective: Minority Presidents in Multiparty Systems (Oxford Studies in Democratization)

Coalitional Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective: Minority Presidents in Multiparty Systems (Oxford Studies in Democratization)

How to Rig an Election

How to Rig an Election

How to Rig an Election

Democracy in Africa: Successes, Failures, and the Struggle for Political Reform (New Approaches to African History, Series Number 9)

Democracy in Africa: Successes, Failures, and the Struggle for Political Reform (New Approaches to African History, Series Number 9)

The Moral Economy of Elections in Africa

The Moral Economy of Elections in Africa: Democracy, Voting and Virtue