Women in Politics in Africa (WIP), 2022-2026
Women are severely underrepresented in African legislatures. This hampers not only women’s representation but development more broadly. The literature has pointed to many barriers to women’s entry into politics, but has neglected to study the effect of free and fair elections – the cornerstone of democracy. WIP argues that men and women have different capacities to engage in electoral manipulation and respond differently to manipulation. The absence of free and fair elections affects women more severely than men as it inhibits both the supply of women candidates and voters’ demand for women in politics. We rely on interviews with potential candidates, election observation, and survey experiments to assess new explanations for the low share of women in politics in Sub-Saharan Africa. WIP thus contributes to the longstanding debate about the relationship between democracy, represented by the absence of electoral manipulation, and women’s political representation.
Merete Bech Seeberg is PI on the project which is funded by an Inge Lehmann-grant from the Danish Research Council (DFF) (2,000,000 DKK).
The project will start in 2022, where there will also be a call for a post.doc, and the webpage will be updated accordingly.
Women are severely underrepresented in African legislatures. This hampers not only women’s representation but development more broadly. The literature has pointed to many barriers to women’s entry into politics, but has neglected to study the effect of free and fair elections – the cornerstone of democracy. WIP argues that men and women have different capacities to engage in electoral manipulation and respond differently to manipulation. The absence of free and fair elections affects women more severely than men as it inhibits both the supply of women candidates and voters’ demand for women in politics. We rely on interviews with potential candidates, election observation, and survey experiments to assess new explanations for the low share of women in politics in Sub-Saharan Africa. WIP thus contributes to the longstanding debate about the relationship between democracy, represented by the absence of electoral manipulation, and women’s political representation.
Merete Bech Seeberg is PI on the project which is funded by an Inge Lehmann-grant from the Danish Research Council (DFF) (2,000,000 DKK).
The project will start in 2022, where there will also be a call for a post.doc, and the webpage will be updated accordingly.
Conflict and democratization (CODE), 2015-2020
Two of the most important objectives in Danish and Western foreign policy is to promote democratisation and prevent violent conflict. Earlier research has shown that democratisation processes tend to trigger conflict – sometimes even civil wars. But how should this dilemma be tackled? Is it possible to establish both peace and freedom at the same time? And how can Western governments and NGOs contribute to preventing or resolving conflict without setting aside the democratic ideals?
Merete Bech Seeberg was co-leader on the work package on institutions (PI Professor Jørgen Møller). The project was funded by Innovationsfonden (16,000,000 DKK).
Publications include:
Two of the most important objectives in Danish and Western foreign policy is to promote democratisation and prevent violent conflict. Earlier research has shown that democratisation processes tend to trigger conflict – sometimes even civil wars. But how should this dilemma be tackled? Is it possible to establish both peace and freedom at the same time? And how can Western governments and NGOs contribute to preventing or resolving conflict without setting aside the democratic ideals?
Merete Bech Seeberg was co-leader on the work package on institutions (PI Professor Jørgen Møller). The project was funded by Innovationsfonden (16,000,000 DKK).
Publications include:
- Reeder, Bryce W., and Merete Bech Seeberg. 2018. “Fighting Your Friends? A Study of Intra-Party Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Democratization 25 (6): 1033–51.
- Seeberg, Merete Bech, Michael Wahman, and Svend-Erik Skaaning. 2018. “Candidate Nomination, Intra-Party Democracy, and Election Violence in Africa.” Democratization 25 (6): 959–77.
- Seeberg, Merete Bech, Michael Wahman, and Svend-Erik Skaaning (eds.). 2018. Violence and candidate nomination in Africa. Oxon and New York: Routledge.
- Seeberg, Merete Bech. 2018. “Electoral Authoritarianism and Economic Control.” International Political Science Review 39 (1): 33–48.