[PDF] Technology Elections And Democracy In Africa Evidence From Kenya eBook

Author : Kaitlyn Carter
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 26,48 MB
Release : 2021
Category :
ISBN :

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How does the use of digital technology in elections affect the credibility of elections in Kenya? In Africa's presidential systems, elections are winner-take-all contests where victory is critical for securing access to state institutions and resources. Technology use is currently changing the landscape of these contests. Over the past fifteen years, nearly two-thirds of all African countries have introduced the use of digital voting systems in elections, including biometric voter registration, biometric identification, electronic voting, and electronic results transmission. For countries like Kenya with unstable electoral histories, technology is meant to bridge a deficit of political trust by increasing transparency, reducing fraud, and making elections more efficient to announce winners faster and with more certainty. I analyze how technology use affects the credibility of elections in Kenya by examining the electoral commission, political parties, and voters. How does the use of election technology (1) affect the electoral commission's management of elections? (2) affect losers' responses to election results? and (3) affect voters' perceptions of elections? Technology use transforms the process of elections and changes who the election actors are, what access stakeholders have, and what the work of the electoral commission is. Rather than provide a modern method for transparent and efficient elections, I argue that the use of election technology does not solve Kenya's electoral problems and its use creates new unintended complications. Using original data from elite interviews in Kenya, I show that technology use creates impediments to competent election management by the electoral commission and generates new arenas of contestation for losing political parties. Evidence from a survey of Kenyan voters shows that opposition voters are less likely to support election results or have confidence in the electoral commission when technology is used. Opposition voters are also less likely to support future technology use in elections.

Author : Kaitlyn Carter
Publisher :
Page : pages
File Size : 27,77 MB
Release : 2021
Category :
ISBN :

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How does the use of digital technology in elections affect the credibility of elections in Kenya? In Africa's presidential systems, elections are winner-take-all contests where victory is critical for securing access to state institutions and resources. Technology use is currently changing the landscape of these contests. Over the past fifteen years, nearly two-thirds of all African countries have introduced the use of digital voting systems in elections, including biometric voter registration, biometric identification, electronic voting, and electronic results transmission. For countries like Kenya with unstable electoral histories, technology is meant to bridge a deficit of political trust by increasing transparency, reducing fraud, and making elections more efficient to announce winners faster and with more certainty. I analyze how technology use affects the credibility of elections in Kenya by examining the electoral commission, political parties, and voters. How does the use of election technology (1) affect the electoral commission's management of elections? (2) affect losers' responses to election results? and (3) affect voters' perceptions of elections? Technology use transforms the process of elections and changes who the election actors are, what access stakeholders have, and what the work of the electoral commission is. Rather than provide a modern method for transparent and efficient elections, I argue that the use of election technology does not solve Kenya's electoral problems and its use creates new unintended complications. Using original data from elite interviews in Kenya, I show that technology use creates impediments to competent election management by the electoral commission and generates new arenas of contestation for losing political parties. Evidence from a survey of Kenyan voters shows that opposition voters are less likely to support election results or have confidence in the electoral commission when technology is used. Opposition voters are also less likely to support future technology use in elections.

Author : Cosmas U. Nwokeafor
Publisher : University Press of America
Page : 293 pages
File Size : 26,54 MB
Release : 2010-09-02
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0761851992

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Media and Technology in Emerging African Democracies is a standard text that will give students an opportunity to familiarize themselves with some of the best literature in media technology impact in emerging African democracies with relevant concentration on information and communication technology (ICT). This textbook is a collection of essays that may be used as primary reading for courses on mass media technology, and information communication technology (ICT). It is also suitable as supplementary reading in media and politics, political science and courses that focus on political communication, and business communication. The book serves as a reference guide to mass media scholars, development communication experts, government leaders, and diplomats interested in media review, most importantly as it pertains to African democratic dispensations. The book includes contributions by scholars whose research interests in media and its relevant impact on African democratic system have stirred considerable academic discourse. The chapters span several social science disciplines, giving students, professionals, and government agencies an opportunity to see challenges from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Author : Nanjala Nyabola
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 299 pages
File Size : 39,17 MB
Release : 2018-11-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1786994321

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From the upheavals of recent national elections to the success of the #MyDressMyChoice feminist movement, digital platforms have already had a dramatic impact on political life in Kenya – one of the most electronically advanced countries in Africa. While the impact of the Digital Age on Western politics has been extensively debated, there is still little appreciation of how it has been felt in developing countries such as Kenya, where Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and other online platforms are increasingly a part of everyday life. Written by a respected Kenyan activist and researcher at the forefront of political online struggles, this book presents a unique contribution to the debate on digital democracy. For traditionally marginalised groups, particularly women and people with disabilities, digital spaces have allowed Kenyans to build new communities which transcend old ethnic and gender divisions. But the picture is far from wholly positive. Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics explores the drastic efforts being made by elites to contain online activism, as well as how 'fake news', a failed digital vote-counting system and the incumbent president's recruitment of Cambridge Analytica contributed to tensions around the 2017 elections. Reframing digital democracy from the African perspective, Nyabola's ground-breaking work opens up new ways of understanding our current global online era.

Author : Cosmas Uchenna Nwokeafor
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 397 pages
File Size : 44,57 MB
Release : 2017-02-22
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0761868801

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Technology Integration and Transformation of Elections in Africa serves as a standard textbook and a reference guide to students in both undergraduate and graduate programs in tertiary institutions where elaborate discourse on the impact of technology to political elections and advancements across the continental Africa have continued to gain weight. The rationale in publishing this textbook far more outweighs its timeliness but speaks highly of its significance because it deals with technology integration and transformation of elections in Africa, a region whose elections has been continuously marred by corruption and incessant fraudulent activities perpetrated by both the citizens, various political parties and the umpires whose responsibilities were to present a credible election. Elections in Africa draws international attention and the news is seldom good. For instance, the elections in Kenya, fueled violence that left 1,500 dead and 300,000 displaced, while elections in Zimbabwe suffered from massive fraud and brutal suppression. In Nigeria in 1999, and 2011, the result of the elections were in shambles and some of the parties that lost the election took to the street resulting in the death of significant percentage of innocent people.

Author : Martin N. Ndlela
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 246 pages
File Size : 47,83 MB
Release : 2020-01-02
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 3030305538

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This book brings together fresh evidence and new theoretical frameworks in a unique analysis of the increasing role of social media in political campaigns and electoral processes across Africa. Supported by contemporary and historical cases studies, it engages with the main drives behind the various appropriations of social media for election campaigns, organization, and voter mobilization. Contributors in this volume delve into changing and complex aspects of social media, offering an appraisal of theoretical perspectives and examining fascinating case studies which social media use is redefining elections across Africa. Contributions show that new media ecologies are resulting in new policy regimes, user behaviors, and communication models that have implications for electoral processes. The book also provides preliminary analysis of emerging forms of algorithm-driven campaigns, fake news, information distortions and other methods that undermine electoral democracy in Africa.

Author : Duncan Omanga
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 277 pages
File Size : 44,21 MB
Release : 2023-11-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1003801560

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This book looks at how digital technologies are revolutionizing electoral campaigns and democratization struggles in Africa. Digital technologies are giving voice and civic agency to a cross section of African voters, providing important spaces for political engagement and debate. Drawing on cases from Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe amongst others, this book traces the shifts and tensions in this changing electoral communications landscape. In doing so, the book explores themes such as hate speech and disinformation, decolonisation, surveillance, internet shutdowns, influencers, bots, algorithms, and election observation, and looks beyond Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and YouTube to the increasingly important role of visual platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. Particularly highlighting the contribution of African scholars, this book is an important guide for researchers across the fields of African politics, media studies, and electoral studies, as well as to professionals and policymakers in political communication.

Author : Terence McNamee
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 433 pages
File Size : 33,21 MB
Release : 2020-11-02
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 3030466361

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This open access book on the state of peacebuilding in Africa brings together the work of distinguished scholars, practitioners, and decision makers to reflect on key experiences and lessons learned in peacebuilding in Africa over the past half century. The core themes addressed by the contributors include conflict prevention, mediation, and management; post-conflict reconstruction, justice and Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration; the role of women, religion, humanitarianism, grassroots organizations, and early warning systems; and the impact of global, regional, and continental bodies. The book's thematic chapters are complemented by six country/region case studies: The Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan/South Sudan, Mozambique and the Sahel/Mali. Each chapter concludes with a set of key lessons learned that could be used to inform the building of a more sustainable peace in Africa. The State of Peacebuilding in Africa was born out of the activities of the Southern Voices Network for Peacebuilding (SVNP), a Carnegie-funded, continent-wide network of African organizations that works with the Wilson Center to bring African knowledge and perspectives to U.S., African, and international policy on peacebuilding in Africa. The research for this book was made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Author : Maggie Dwyer
Publisher : Zed Books Ltd.
Page : 353 pages
File Size : 18,71 MB
Release : 2019-07-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 178699500X

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The smartphone and social media have transformed Africa, allowing people across the continent to share ideas, organise, and participate in politics like never before. While both activists and governments alike have turned to social media as a new form of political mobilization, some African states have increasingly sought to clamp down on the technology, introducing restrictive laws or shutting down networks altogether. Drawing on over a dozen new empirical case studies – from Kenya to Somalia, South Africa to Tanzania – this collection explores how rapidly growing social media use is reshaping political engagement in Africa. But while social media has often been hailed as a liberating tool, the book demonstrates how it has often served to reinforce existing power dynamics, rather than challenge them. Featuring experts from a range of disciplines from across the continent, this collection is the first comprehensive overview of social media and politics in Africa. By examining the historical, political, and social context in which these media platforms are used, the book reveals the profound effects of cyber-activism, cyber-crime, state policing and surveillance on political participation.