In sub-Saharan Africa, property relationships around land and access to natural resources
vary across localities, districts and farming regions. These differences produce patterned …

Why do strong opposition party organizations emerge in some democratizing countries,
while those in others remain weak or quickly fragment on ethnic lines? From Protest to …

The administrative state is a powerful tool because it can control the population and, in
moments of crisis, help leaders put down popular threats to their rule. But a state does not …

How does decentralization affect patronage and rent seeking? While centralization is seen
as enabling these practices, many expect decentralization to reduce them. With few …

Using political economy analysis, this paper discusses three precipitating factors that were
ignited by Kenya's 2007 election, which was too close to call beforehand and highly …

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 …

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 …

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 ho** that the secret …

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 …

Guillermo O'Donnell drew attention to “brown spots” in Latin America's political topography,
which he defined as peripheral regions where the presence of the republican state is …