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Professor Justin Willis' 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.

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.

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.

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.

Alcohol licensing hours: time and temperance in Kenya (2014)
Book Chapter
Willis, J. (2014). Alcohol licensing hours: time and temperance in Kenya. In G. Klantschnig, N. Carrier, & C. Amber (Eds.), Drugs in Africa: Histories and Ethnographies of Use, Trade and Control (89-104). Palgrave

Democracy and its discontents: understanding Kenya’s 2013 elections (2014)
Journal Article
Willis, J., Cheesman, N., & Lynch, G. (2014). Democracy and its discontents: understanding Kenya’s 2013 elections. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 8(1), 2-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2013.874105

In the months leading up to Kenya's general election in March 2013, there was much concern – both within Kenya itself and internationally – that political competition would trigger a fresh wave of ethnic violence. However, the 2013 elections passed o... Read More about Democracy and its discontents: understanding Kenya’s 2013 elections.

Chieftaincy (2013)
Book Chapter
Willis, J. (2013). Chieftaincy. In J. Parker, & R. Reid (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Modern African History (208-23). OUP

Marginalization and participation on the Kenya coast: the 2013 elections (2013)
Journal Article
Willis, J., & Chome, N. (2014). Marginalization and participation on the Kenya coast: the 2013 elections. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 8(1), 115-134. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2013.844443

At the coast, the run-up to Kenya's 2013 elections was dominated by fears of violence and the calls for a boycott by the secessionist Mombasa Republican Council. However, the elections passed off largely peacefully, and coastal turnout was significan... Read More about Marginalization and participation on the Kenya coast: the 2013 elections.

Tradition, tribe and state in Kenya: the Mijikenda Union, 1945-1980 (2013)
Journal Article
Willis, J., & Gona, G. (2013). Tradition, tribe and state in Kenya: the Mijikenda Union, 1945-1980. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 55(2), 448-473. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0010417513000091

The apparent mobilizing power of ethnic sentiment in recent African history has been the subject of vigorous debate. Studies that emphasize the centrality of colonialism and the instrumental use of ethnicity have been criticized by a scholarship argu... Read More about Tradition, tribe and state in Kenya: the Mijikenda Union, 1945-1980.

Pwani C Kenya? Memory, documents and secessionist politics in coastal Kenya (2013)
Journal Article
Willis, J., & Gona, G. (2013). Pwani C Kenya? Memory, documents and secessionist politics in coastal Kenya. African Affairs, 112(446), 48-71. https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/ads064

Following the elections of 2007, there was a significant increase in public expressions of secessionist feeling on the Kenya coast. During 2010 and 2011, one manifestation of this was the emergence of the Mombasa Republic Council (MRC), which demands... Read More about Pwani C Kenya? Memory, documents and secessionist politics in coastal Kenya.

The Sudan Handbook (2011)
Book
Ryle, J., Willis, J., Baldo, S., & Jok, J. (Eds.). (2011). The Sudan Handbook. James Currey

"We changed the laws." Electoral practice and malpractice in Sudan since 1953 (2010)
Journal Article
Willis, J., & al-Batthani, A. (2010). "We changed the laws." Electoral practice and malpractice in Sudan since 1953. African Affairs, 109(435), 191-212. https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adq003

This article explores the history of elections by secret ballot in Sudan since the 1950s, and considers what lessons this history may offer in the run-up to the national elections planned under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The article locates t... Read More about "We changed the laws." Electoral practice and malpractice in Sudan since 1953.

Budget drinking: alcohol consumption in two Kenyan towns (2009)
Journal Article
Mutisya, D., & Willis, J. (2009). Budget drinking: alcohol consumption in two Kenyan towns. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 3(1), 55-73. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531050802682770

The production and consumption of informal sector alcohol continues to excite much popular debate in Kenya. This paper, based on limited survey work and extensive observation, explores two of the facets of this phenomenon: palm wine in Mombasa and ch... Read More about Budget drinking: alcohol consumption in two Kenyan towns.

Potent Brews. A Social History of Alcohol in East Africa 1850-1999 (2002)
Book
Willis, J. (2002). Potent Brews. A Social History of Alcohol in East Africa 1850-1999. James Currey

This is the first general history of alcohol and drinking in East Africa. It contributes to an emerging field of African social history in distinctive and innovative ways. Willis's central theme is "power" - from customary beliefs in alcohol as a sym... Read More about Potent Brews. A Social History of Alcohol in East Africa 1850-1999.