Laura Seay

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What motivates voters in Africa? How do ordinary people see their place in the world, their ability to enact change, and the role that political participation might play in changing their personal well-being, that of their community, and that of the nation? Where do they get these ideas, and who is capable of changing them?

In their new book, “From Pews to Politics: Religious Sermons and Political Participation in Africa,” Rachel Beatty Riedl and Gwyneth H. McClendon consider these questions, using a unique frame: religious affiliation and belief. Through a methodologically sophisticated and empirically rich study, the authors build a case that religious beliefs shape political behavior in profound, if sometimes subtle, ways.…  Seguir leyendo »

Workers wearing protective clothing bury Agnes Mbambu, who died of Ebola. The 50-year-old grandmother of a 5-year-old boy who became Ebola's first cross-border victim, lived in the village of Karambi, near the border with Congo, in western Uganda. (Ronald Kabuubi/AP)

Public health authorities have recorded more than 2,000 cases in the ongoing Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo. Last week, a 5-year-old boy died of Ebola in neighboring Uganda, signifying the outbreak has spread across the border. The latest update published by the World Health Organization (WHO) suggests the Congolese outbreak is not close to ending — the number of new cases is actually on the rise.

This is the second-deadliest Ebola outbreak on record. In the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, health authorities recorded more than 28,000 cases, and more than 11,000 people died.

Why has the current Congolese outbreak been so challenging for the government and other stakeholders to contain?…  Seguir leyendo »

"Love Does Not Win Elections" by Ayisha Osori (Narrative Landscape Press/Narrative Landscape Press)

What does it take to run for office in Nigeria? Ayisha Osori discovers the answer to this question in her wonderful memoir “Love Does Not Win Elections,” which tells the story of her 2014 primary run for a parliamentary seat in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. In doing so, she weaves a sharp, witty and often infuriating narrative of the ways patronage politics, sexism and ethnicity can confound even the best-prepared candidates.

When she decided to run for Nigeria’s House of Representatives, Osori, a lawyer, opinion columnist and civil society leader, served as chief executive of the Nigerian Women Trust Fund (NWTF), where she worked to increase the involvement and representation of women in politics and other decision-making arenas.…  Seguir leyendo »

Learning from three African presidents

Full disclosure: I am a huge fan of Ohio University Press’s short histories of Africa series. I use them to teach my introductory-level African politics students about oppression, resistance, liberation and corruption, and I recommend the books to anyone who asks as an affordable and accessible introduction to a wide range of topics in African studies. Written by a diverse range of smart, expert authors, the volumes in the series provide short, easy-to-understand synopses of everything from the history of organizations like the Women’s League of South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) to biographies of leaders from across the continent.

In last summer’s reading series, we featured Roy Doron and Toyin Falola’s biography of Nigerian playwright and protester Ken Saro-Wiwa.…  Seguir leyendo »

Residents arrange under a white sheet victims of a suicide bombing in Koffa on June 19, 2017. At least 16 people were killed in suicide bomb attacks near a camp for those made homeless by Boko Haram violence in northeast Nigeria, emergency services said on June 19, 2017. (AFP/Getty Images)

The rise of northern Nigerian Islamic extremist group Boko Haram has garnered a great deal of attention from American policymakers in recent years. That interest compounded after the 2014 kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok, an event that galvanized grass-roots anger and demands for an international response around the globe. As attention to the crisis grew, however, misunderstandings about the group’s origins, motives and connections (or lack thereof) to international Islamist extremist organizations have abounded.

Several new books provide important correctives to the many misperceptions about Boko Haram. In the next two installments of our African politics summer reading series, we’ll examine three of these books to try to develop a better understanding of the movement, its supporters and critics, and how ordinary northerners see themselves as Muslims and Nigerian citizens.…  Seguir leyendo »

Albert, who declined to use his last name because of the stigma surrounding his situation, walks from his mother’s house to his family’s old land, where his relatives’ homes were burned and people were killed during the 1994 genocide in Mukura sector. (Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)

Often lauded by international observers, Rwanda’s gacaca courts have long been held up by their proponents as a model for successful, post-conflict reconciliation efforts. Confronted with the nearly impossible challenge of rebuilding a country after genocide, Rwanda needed a mechanism to hold those who committed genocide accountable in an efficient and effective manner. The solution was gacaca: a system of 12,000 community-based courts that sought to try genocide criminals while promoting forgiveness by victims, ownership of guilt by criminals, and reconciliation in communities as a way to move forward. While the organizers and leaders of the genocide were mostly sent for trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, gacaca courts tried more than  1 million ordinary people who served as the foot soldiers of the genocide.…  Seguir leyendo »