Barrington Moore's famous line 'no bourgeoisie, no democracy' is one of the most quoted claims in political science. But has the rise of the African middle class promoted democratic consolidation? This paper uses the case of Kenya to investigate the attitudes and behaviours of the middle class....

Barrington Moore's famous line 'no bourgeoisie, no democracy' is one of the most quoted claims in political science. But has the rise of the African middle class promoted democratic consolidation? This paper uses the case of Kenya to investigate the attitudes and behaviours of the middle class....

In order to complement ongoing current empirical research, this article draws wider lessons from the crisis that grew out of the disputed Kenyan presidential election of December 2007. Looking beyond the immediate trigger for the subsequent violence - namely, the election itself - the paper...

The ‘ethnic census’ understanding of African elections asserts that voters support co-ethnic presidential candidates due to group identity and patronage politics. Yet in reality, few groups line up perfectly. In the ethnicly-charged 2013 Kenyan elections, for example, 100,000 Kikuyu voted...

Accountability is considered an essential feature of a well-functioning democracy, yet while competitive elections have spread across the continent in Africa, the emergence of accountability relationships has been slow to follow. Too often, competitively elected governments in Africa have not...

The death of President Levy Mwanawasa in August 2008 plunged Zambian politics into a state of flux. This article argues that the way the main parties responded to the challenge of the resulting presidential by-election has three lessons to teach the emerging literature on political parties....

Barrington Moore.s famous line .no bourgeoisie, no democracy. is one of the most quoted claims in political science. But has the rise of the African middle class promoted democratic consolidation? This paper uses the case of Kenya to investigate the attit