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Voting, nationhood and citizenship at the end of empire in Africa
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Willis, J., Lynch, Gabrielle and Cheeseman, N. (2018) Voting, nationhood and citizenship at the end of empire in Africa. The Historical Journal, 61 (4). pp. 1113-1135. doi:10.1017/S0018246X18000158
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X18000158
Abstract
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 three territories – Ghana (Gold Coast), Kenya and Uganda. It shows that in each of these the ballot box came to provide a point of convergence for the disparate ambitions of nationalist politicians, colonial policy-makers and a hopeful, restive public: performing order, asserting maturity and equality, and staking a claim to prosperity. Late-colonial elections, we argue, constrained political possibility even as they offered citizenship, presenting the developmentalist state as the only possible future and ensuring substantial continuities from late-colonialism to independence. They also established a linkage between nationhood, adulthood and the ballot that was to have enduring political force. Yet at the same time, they established elections as a space for a local politics of clientelism, and for kinds of claims-making and accountability that were to complicate post-independence projects of nation-building.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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| Subjects: | D History General and Old World > DT Africa J Political Science > JF Political institutions (General) J Political Science > JQ Political institutions (Asia, Africa, Australia, Pacific Area, etc.) |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies | ||||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Elections--Africa, Voting--Africa, Nationalism--Africa, Citizenship--Africa | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | The Historical Journal | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 0018-246X | ||||||||
| Official Date: | December 2018 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 61 | ||||||||
| Number: | 4 | ||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 1113-1135 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1017/S0018246X18000158 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Publisher Statement: | COPYRIGHT: © Cambridge University Press 2018 | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||
| Copyright Holders: | Cambridge University Press | ||||||||
| RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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