All Outputs (38)

Saving, inheritance and future-making in 1940s Kenya (2024)
Journal Article
Velasco, C., & Willis, J. (online). Saving, inheritance and future-making in 1940s Kenya. Past & Present: A Journal of Historical Studies, https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtae013

The colonial state in Kenya offered its African subjects a novel tool for imagining a future life. The Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) was meant to encourage ‘thrift’ — the postponement of consumption — and to play its part in a wider colonial projec... Read More about Saving, inheritance and future-making in 1940s Kenya.

Has Kenya Democratized? Institutional strengthening and contingency in the 2022 general elections (2024)
Journal Article
Cheeseman, N., Kanyinga, K., Lynch, G., & Willis, J. (2024). Has Kenya Democratized? Institutional strengthening and contingency in the 2022 general elections. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 18(2), 240-260. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2024.2359154

Kenya’s 2022 general elections saw – for only the second time in the country’s history – a transfer of power from a retiring president to a candidate that they had not backed. Moreover, despite accusations of electoral malpractice, the Supreme Court... Read More about Has Kenya Democratized? Institutional strengthening and contingency in the 2022 general elections.

Debt, credit and obligation in Kenya's 2022 elections (2024)
Journal Article
Chome, N., & Willis, J. (2024). Debt, credit and obligation in Kenya's 2022 elections. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 18(2), 301-320. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2024.2359159

Asked why they intended to vote for William Ruto in Kenya’s 2022 presidential election, many people in central Kenya had a simple answer: ‘we owe Ruto a debt’. This was not the only kind of debt, nor the only idea of obligation, to feature in the ele... Read More about Debt, credit and obligation in Kenya's 2022 elections.

Document Number Five: Elections and Tutelary Politics in Uganda, 1967–1971 (2023)
Journal Article
Willis, J. (2023). Document Number Five: Elections and Tutelary Politics in Uganda, 1967–1971. The English Historical Review, 138(590-591), 281-306. https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cead080

In July 1970, Uganda’s President Milton Obote published – under his own name – a plan for a new system of single-party elections. Obote presented ‘Document Number Five’, as it was called, as a radical solution to a profound problem. Africa’s national... Read More about Document Number Five: Elections and Tutelary Politics in Uganda, 1967–1971.

The History of elections in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda: what we can learn from these nNational exercises” (2021)
Journal Article
Willis, J., Cheeseman, N., & Lynch, G. (2021). The History of elections in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda: what we can learn from these nNational exercises”. Journal of African elections, 20(2),

The Moral Economy of Elections in Africa: Democracy, Voting and Virtue (2021)
Book
Willis, J., Cheeseman, N., & Lynch, G. (2021). The Moral Economy of Elections in Africa: Democracy, Voting and Virtue. Cambridge University Press

La côte kényane : religion, race, ethnicité et la notion fuyante de communauté politique’ (2020)
Book Chapter
Willis, J., & Mwakimako, H. (2020). La côte kényane : religion, race, ethnicité et la notion fuyante de communauté politique’. In Le Kenya en Marche 2000-2020 (343-64). Open editions. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.africae.2009

From peace campaigns to peaceocracy: elections, order and authority in Africa (2019)
Journal Article
Lynch, G., Cheeseman, N., & Willis, J. (2019). From peace campaigns to peaceocracy: elections, order and authority in Africa. African Affairs, 118(473), 603-627. https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adz019

Research on Kenya’s 2013 elections has suggested that a “peace narrative” was deliberately promoted by an establishment elite to delegitimize protest and justify the use of excessive force. It has also tended to see the Kenyan case as exceptional and... Read More about From peace campaigns to peaceocracy: elections, order and authority in Africa.

Kenya's 2017 elections: winner-takes-all politics as usual? (2019)
Journal Article
Cheeseman, N., Lynch, G., Kanyinga, K., Ruteere, M., & Willis, J. (2019). Kenya's 2017 elections: winner-takes-all politics as usual?. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 13(2), 215-234. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2019.1594072

This article asks what Kenya’s 2017 general elections tell us about the capacity of a new constitution to reduce the stakes of political competition and prospects of political instability. Three constitutional changes are particularly important: the... Read More about Kenya's 2017 elections: winner-takes-all politics as usual?.

Voting, nationhood, and citizenship in late-colonial Africa (2018)
Journal Article
Willis, J., Lynch, G., & Cheeseman, N. (2018). Voting, nationhood, and citizenship in late-colonial Africa. Historical Journal, 61(4), 1113-1135. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0018246x18000158

In the face of considerable scepticism from some British commentators, elections by secret ballot and adult suffrage emerged as central features of the end of British rule in Africa. This article considers the trajectories of electoral politics in th... Read More about Voting, nationhood, and citizenship in late-colonial Africa.

Digital Dilemmas: The Unintended Consequences of Election Technology (2018)
Journal Article
Cheeseman, N., Lynch, G., & Willis, J. (2018). Digital Dilemmas: The Unintended Consequences of Election Technology. Democratization, 25(8), 1397-1418. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2018.1470165

Digital technologies are increasingly used in elections around the world. Where the resources and capacity of the state are limited, some have argued that such technologies make it possible to rapidly “leapfrog” to cleaner and more credible elections... Read More about Digital Dilemmas: The Unintended Consequences of Election Technology.

Kenya 2017: the interim election (2017)
Other
Willis, J., Cheeseman, N., & Lynch, G. (2017). Kenya 2017: the interim election

Ghana: the ebbing power of incumbency (2017)
Journal Article
Cheeseman, N., Lynch, G., & Willis, J. (2017). Ghana: the ebbing power of incumbency. Journal of Democracy, 28(2), 92-104. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2017.0027

Despite pre-election fears, the victory of the opposition NPP over the ruling NDC in Ghana’s December 2016 elections became the prologue to a peaceful transfer of power, an outcome which suggests that the advantage of incumbency in African elections... Read More about Ghana: the ebbing power of incumbency.

Preaching politics: Islam and Christianity on the Kenya coast (2017)
Journal Article
Deacon, G., Gona, G., Mwakimako, H., & Willis, J. (2017). Preaching politics: Islam and Christianity on the Kenya coast. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 35(2), 148-167. https://doi.org/10.1080/02589001.2017.1287345

Focusing on the Kenya coast, this article analyses the developing contrast between the place of Islam and Christianity in public politics. It argues that Islam’s association with criticism of the political order contrasts with Christianity, but that... Read More about Preaching politics: Islam and Christianity on the Kenya coast.

“A valid electoral exercise”? Uganda’s 1980 elections and the observers’ dilemma (2017)
Journal Article
Willis, J., Lynch, G., & Cheeseman, N. (2017). “A valid electoral exercise”? Uganda’s 1980 elections and the observers’ dilemma. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 59(1), 211-238. https://doi.org/10.1017/s001041751600058x

The presence at Uganda's 1980 general elections of a Commonwealth Observer Group might be seen as a seminal moment. This was the first formal international observation of polls in a sovereign African state and the precursor of multiple similar missio... Read More about “A valid electoral exercise”? Uganda’s 1980 elections and the observers’ dilemma.

La fabrique du vote: placer la matérialité au cœur de l’analyse. (2016)
Journal Article
Perrot, S., Pommerolle, M., & Willis, J. (2016). La fabrique du vote: placer la matérialité au cœur de l’analyse. Politique africaine, 144(4), 5-26. https://doi.org/10.3917/polaf.144.0005

Islam and democracy: debating electoral involvement on the Kenya coast (2016)
Journal Article
Mwakimako, H., & Willis, J. (2016). Islam and democracy: debating electoral involvement on the Kenya coast. Islamic Africa, 7(1), 19-43. https://doi.org/10.1163/21540993-00701001

Decentralisation in Kenya: the governance of governors (2016)
Journal Article
Cheeseman, N., Lynch, G., & Willis, J. (2016). Decentralisation in Kenya: the governance of governors. Journal of Modern African Studies, 54(01), 1-35. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022278x1500097x

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 months there were public calls for a referendum to significantly revise the... Read More about Decentralisation in Kenya: the governance of governors.

La machine electorale: culture materielle des bureaux de vote au Ghana, au Kenya et en Ouganda. = The Voting Machine: The material culture of polling stations in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda (2016)
Journal Article
Willis, J., Lynch, G., & Cheeseman, N. (2016). La machine electorale: culture materielle des bureaux de vote au Ghana, au Kenya et en Ouganda. = The Voting Machine: The material culture of polling stations in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda. Politique africaine, 144(4), 27-50. https://doi.org/10.3917/polaf.144.0027

Les élections mettent en jeu plusieurs types de représentations publiques de l’ordre, que ce soit durant les campagnes ou au fil des processus bureaucratiques entourant la tenue des scrutins. Cet article s’intéresse à un élément clé de l’élection, à... Read More about La machine electorale: culture materielle des bureaux de vote au Ghana, au Kenya et en Ouganda. = The Voting Machine: The material culture of polling stations in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda.

The Southern Problem: representing Sudan's southern provinces to c. 1970 (2015)
Journal Article
Willis, J. (2015). The Southern Problem: representing Sudan's southern provinces to c. 1970. Journal of African History, 56(02), 281-300. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0021853715000249

Southern Sudanese politicians of the 1950s and 1960s have been criticized for a rivalrous, divisive politics, which left the south disunited and vulnerable. While acknowledging that these men were a tiny, squabbling group, remote from those they soug... Read More about The Southern Problem: representing Sudan's southern provinces to c. 1970.