Electoral participation in African democracies: the impact of individual and contextual factors

This paper addresses the question of how electoral participation at the individual level is affected by various political and sociological factors in new democracies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Relying on Afrobarometer (Round 5) data, the study examines the determinants of voting for over 12,000 voting aged individuals in eight countries. Findings confirm the importance of individual characteristics such as age, associational networks, discussing politics, party identification, religiosity, trust and satisfaction with democracy in predicting turnout at the individual level. But more importantly, the addition of contextual factors significantly improves the individual-level model predicting vote choice in these democracies.     

A Tough Transition

When I arrived in Beijing nearly three months ago, the unexpected happened.Before coming to China’s mainland, I had lived in the Asia-Pacific for over three year——South Korea, the Philippines and Taiwan, where I studied Mandarin and interned at a newspaper.     

Doing Development Right

While most of China’s provincial capitals offer little in the way for tourists,Fuzhou defies the norm and is quickly becoming a must visit destination along the country’s already crowded eastern seaboard with its green focus and cultural heritage often overlooked by local travelers.     

THE GOOD LIFE

As the coffee industry grows, farm workers are witnessing a drastic increase in their quality of life For seven hours a day, Fu Xiufang picks raw coffee beans from the bushes on the Manzhongtian plantation high in the mountains of southwest China’s Yunnan Province, close to the border with Laos.     

IS COFFEE A THREAT TO CHINESE CULTURE?

As the number of cafés continues to grow in China, could the teahouse become a thing of the past? At a teahouse in west Beijing, cigarette smoke and middle-aged men playing mahjong