William & Patricia Ayers Global Tipping Points - The Future of Democratization in Africa

William & Patricia Ayers Global Tipping Points Series

A Less Free World?

The Future of Democratization

in Africa

September 28, 2022

6:00 pm 

Mara Auditorium

Southern New Hampshire University

About the Program

In the twenty years after the end of the Cold War, African countries participated in a remarkable global wave of democratization. Whereas in 1989, two-thirds of African states were “not free,” as measured by Freedom House, by 2009, two-thirds were considered “free” or “partly free.” 

However, there has been a gradual, but significant, democratic decline in the last decade, with the percentage of African states considered "free" or "partly free" slipping to 56% in Freedom House's 2022 report. And among those countries considered partly free, increasingly populist governments are suppressing opposition groups, postponing elections, eliminating term limits, and abusing human rights to maintain power. This growing trend is driving democratic backsliding on the continent. 

Join the World Affairs Council of New Hampshire as we focus on the particular challenges confronting the future of democratization in Africa with Darren Kew of the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

About the Speaker

Darren Kew is an Associate Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Peace, Democracy, and Development at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He studies the connection between democratic institution building in Africa and the development of political cultures that support democracy, particularly in terms of the role of civil society groups in this development. Kew has worked with the Council on Foreign Relations' Center for Preventive Action to provide analysis and blueprints for preventing conflicts in several areas around the world, including Nigeria, Central Africa, and Kosovo. He has also been a consultant to the United Nations, USAID, the US State Department, and to a number of NGOs, including the Carter Center in a 1999 effort by former President Carter to mediate the Niger Delta conflicts. His work on how conflict resolution methods promote democratization of national political cultures is one of the first of its kind linking these important fields.  

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