Seminar - The Africa Leadership Change dataset: A new tool for studying political leadership and development

Lectures over, exams done, the sun has come out! Time for a special out-of-hectic-season seminar. I'm really happy to be hosting Giovanni Carbone, a long-time friend and colleague - we wrote our PhD theses together at LSE.

Dr Giovanni Carbone

Associate professor of political science, Università degli Studi di Milano 

Monday 13 June, 4-5pm G51

“The Africa Leadership Change dataset: A new tool for studying political leadership and development”

 

ABSTRACT - African politics long revolved around “personal rulers” who either overstayed in office or were quickly ousted by coups. The multiparty reforms of the 1990s were meant to change and regularize the way in which African rulers access and are removed from office. There is, however, a dearth of systematic data through which the evolution and implications of leadership transitions can be examined. We thus built a comprehensive Africa Leadership Change (ALC) dataset covering all 54 countries in the continent from 1960 to 2015. The dataset provides information for all leaders who held power in the region, including the modes of access to the leadership as well as several other key election and regime variables. An exploratory analysis illustrates how Africa’s reforms affected the dynamics and timing of leaders’ replacement, as well as their socio-economic implications. A comparison with existing datasets shows that ALC is more adequate for investigating leadership transitions in Africa.

 

Everyone is welcome! :)