African Sense-making and Perspectives on the US Elections and Politics

For almost a century now, US based institutions and scholars have studied African elections, democratisation, and politics. Logically, American ideas and systems of liberal democracy and politics have been the benchmarks and lenses used to assess African elections, democratisation, and politics. This development has encouraged scholars, citizens, and governments of African countries to embrace and work toward achieving American political ideas, including cases where the colonially inherited British parliamentary system was remodelled to American-style presidential system. Despite the popularity for US political ideas and systems, and the efforts to replicate them in Africa, there is limited scholarship on American politics that is based on an African sense of the subject. Lack and inadequate African sense-making and engagement of the US elections, democracy and politics are sometimes responsible for challenges in adoption and adaptation of these ideas and systems, and associated disappointment and frustrations with their applications and performances in many African countries. Accordingly, the continent has recently witnessed a growing dissatisfaction with electoral politics and liberal democracy, which have failed to deliver expected improvements in the welfare and security of the population. These, among other things, account for the recent wave of military intervention and authoritarian regimes on the continent.
Drawing from African experiences and perspectives, this panel calls for scholarly attention on the US elections, democracy, and politics with the aim of understanding the weaknesses and strengths of these ideas and systems, their global and regional appeal, as well as the prospects and challenges of their adoption and adaptation in Africa and the world. Specifically, the panel is interested in the African sense of (1) American political thought, electoral processes and actors, including issues of party politics, election administration, judiciary, media, transparency, and security, (2) how events around the US politics and elections would be understood if they were in Africa, and (3) the implications for the desirability, adoption, adaptation, application, operationalisation and effectiveness of American political thought and systems in Africa.
Discussant: Dr Winnie Rugutt-Chebon, African Centre for the Study of the United States, University of Nairobi, Kenya