GDI Seminar: A tale of two elections - Prospects for democratic consolidation based on recent experiences in Ghana and Kenya
| Dates: | 9 May 2018 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 17:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Global Development Institute |
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| How much: | Free |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, Adults, Alumni, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | Professor Karuti Kanyinga, Professor Dzodzi Tsikata |
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Speakers:
Professor Dzodzi Tsikata, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana
Professor Karuti Kanyinga, Institute for Development Studies (IDS), University of Nairobi
Recent elections in Ghana (2016) and Kenya (2017) have produced starkly divergent outcomes and raise very different questions regarding the prospects for democratisation. While the Ghanaian elections resulted in the third turnover since the return of multiparty elections and the consolidation of a highly competitive two party democracy, recent elections in Kenya were deeply divisive and provoked legal challenges that called the entire electoral process into question. These events highlight how political elites in Ghana and Kenya have responded very differently to the incentives posed by electoral institutions in the context of ethnic diversity.
This seminar will ask what conclusions we can draw regarding the prospects for democratic deepening, and development prospects more broadly, in Ghana, Kenya and across the African continent, with a particular focus on competition and bargaining between political elites, political parties and the role for institutions.
Speakers
Professor Karuti Kanyinga
Role: Professor
Organisation: University of Nairobi
Biography: Professor of Development Studies at the University of Nairobi
Professor Dzodzi Tsikata
Role: Professor
Organisation: University of Ghana
Biography: Dzodzi Tsikata is a Research Professor of Development Sociology and Director of the Institute of African Studies (IAS) at the University of Ghana since August 2016. Before this, she was based at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) during which time she was Deputy Director and Director of the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy (CEGENSA) at the University of Ghana. She holds a Ph.D in Social Sciences from Leiden University in the Netherlands. In a career spanning over 25 years, Tsikata’s research has been in the areas of gender and development policies and practices; women’s movements and gender equality activism; the politics and livelihood effects of land tenure reforms, large scale land acquisitions and agricultural commercialisation; and informal labour relations and conditions of work, and she is widely published on these subjects.
Travel and Contact Information
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Boardroom
Arthur Lewis Building
Manchester
