Due to their concentration of trade, culture, learning, power, and wealth, African cities have long been major sites of contestation and change. Over the last half-century, the region’s cities have witnessed nationalist struggles, pro-democracy demonstrations, electoral violence, and service delivery protests. As the fastest urbanizing region of the world, these trends are not only concentrated in major municipal agglomerations and capital cities, but also increasingly present in secondary urban centers and towns. Yet, the political impacts of this significant demographic transition have been relatively unexplored. This lecture will therefore explore how Africa’s urbanization intersects with party systems and different decentralized structures, with important implications for voting behavior, service delivery, and the rights of the urban poor.

Bio

Dr. Danielle Resnick is a Senior Research Fellow and Governance Theme Leader at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). She focuses on the political economy of development, decentralization, agricultural policy processes, political parties, and democratization. Her last book include Ghana’s Economic and Agricultural Transformation: Past Lessons and Future Prospects (Oxford University Press, 2019).She previously was a Research Fellow at the United Nations University-World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) in Finland and has served as a consultant for Oxford Analytica, the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR) in Kenya, and the World Bank.