Some campaigns make people more likely to pay a bribe COMMENT | NIC CHEESEMAN & CARYN PEIFFER | Donors and civil society groups spend tens of millions of dollars every year trying to combat corruption. They do it because corruption has been shown to increase poverty and inequality while undermining trust …
Read More »Holding safe elections under COVID-19
Nic Cheeseman, a professor of Democracy at the University of Birmingham, explains how to hold elections safely and uphold democracy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cheeseman was formerly the Director of the African Studies Centre at the University of Oxford. In addition to a number of book chapters and articles, he …
Read More »BOOK REVIEW: African leaders are more constrained by democratic rules than you think
Kampala, Uganda | NIC CHEESEMAN | Africa is often imagined to be a place in which presidents can do whatever they want, unencumbered by constitutional or democratic constraints. A large body of literature has developed around the idea that the law can be flouted at will, leading to a situation …
Read More »COMMENT: African leaders and democracy
Why it is not true that African presidents can do whatever they want, unencumbered by democratic constraints COMMENT | NIC CHEESEMAN | Africa is often imagined to be a place in which presidents can do whatever they want, unencumbered by constitutional or democratic constraints. A large body of literature has developed …
Read More »Rwanda’s development model
Why it wouldn’t work elsewhere in Africa Kampala, Uganda | NIC CHEESEMAN | Rwanda is often touted as an example of what African states could achieve if only they were better governed. Out of the ashes of a horrific genocide, President Paul Kagame has resuscitated the economy, curtailed corruption and maintained …
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