BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Democracy in Africa (Dr Nic Cheeseman): book talk - Dr Nic Cheesem
 an (Oxford)
DTSTART:20161109T170000Z
DTEND:20161109T183000Z
UID:TALK68097@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Sharath Srinivasan
DESCRIPTION:Join us for a book talk\, followed by drinks\, with Dr Nic Che
 eseman (Oxford University)\, the author of _*Democracy in Africa*_ (OUP\, 
 2015).\n\n*Description*\n\nThis book provides the first comprehensive over
 view of the history of democracy in Africa and explains why the continent
 ’s democratic experiments have so often failed\, as well as how they cou
 ld succeed. Nic Cheeseman grapples with some of the most important questio
 ns facing Africa and democracy today\, including whether international act
 ors should try and promote democracy abroad\, how to design political syst
 ems that manage ethnic diversity\, and why democratic governments often ma
 ke bad policy decisions. Beginning in the colonial period with the introdu
 ction of multi-party elections and ending in 2013 with the collapse of dem
 ocracy in Mali and South Sudan\, the book describes the rise of authoritar
 ian states in the 1970s\; the attempts of trade unions and some religious 
 groups to check the abuse of power in the 1980s\; the remarkable return of
  multiparty politics in the 1990s\; and finally\, the tragic tendency for 
 elections to exacerbate corruption and violence.\n\n‘Accessible yet auth
 oritative and often provocative\, Nic Cheeseman provides an exceptional hi
 story of contemporary democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa … Buttressed by co
 mpelling examples and statistics from seemingly every country in the regio
 n\, this book is must reading for anyone interested in African politics.
 ’\n\n— Nicolas van de Walle\, Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Government
 \, Cornell University\n\n\n*About the author*\n\nNic Cheeseman (nicholas.c
 heeseman@politics.ox.ac.uk) is Associate Professor of African Politics at 
 Oxford University. He is the co-editor of the collections Our Turn to Eat 
 (2010)\, The Handbook of African Politics (2013)\, and African Politics: M
 ajor Works (2016)\, as well as the co-author of the article “Rethinking 
 the ‘presidentialism debate’: Conceptualizing coalitional politics in 
 cross-regional perspective” (Democratization\, 2014)\, which won the ina
 ugural GIGA prize for the best article published in Comparative Area Studi
 es. A monograph\, Democracy in Africa: Successes\, failures and the strugg
 le for political reform was published by Cambridge University Press in Apr
 il 2015\, and an edited collection on African political institutions is se
 t to be published by CUP in early 2017. Dr Cheeseman is also the founding 
 editor of the Oxford Encyclopaedia of African Politics\, a former editor o
 f the journal African Affairs and an advisor to\, and writer for\, Kofi An
 nan's African Progress Panel.\n
LOCATION:S2\, Alison Richard Building\, Sidgwick Site\, 7 West Rd\, CB3 9D
 T
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR