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To what extent do citizens in Africa support democracy? In this paper, I study this question by exploring how behavior is affected when individuals can choose to engage with a decision maker versus when they are assigned to engage with one. Using a modified ultimatum game conducted in Senegal (2009) and Ghana (2010), I find that individuals are more likely to accept offers from allocators that they can choose than from allocators that they are assigned to. If we accept that choosing political leaders (via free and fair elections) is a fundamental difference between democracies and nondemocracies, then these findings suggest that individuals in this study positively respond to this key democratic quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic relationship between state and domestic dissidents remains a central topic of study. For example, Moore (2000) finds that states substitute accommodation for repression and repression for accommodation when dissidents protest. However, subsequent research does not fully corroborate, Moore’s findings (e.g. Carey 2006). .x000d.I address these inconclusive findings and examine how political opportunity impacts the duration of moves in the state-dissent-state action sequence (does state accommodation (repression) “survive” longer to dissent protest than state repression (accommodation)?) After protest happens, what is the risk to the next state action? .x000d.I hypothesize that state repression survives longer to protest because dissents must wait for opportunities before they can act. This is conditional on regime type. In democratic states, dissidents respond more quickly than in non-democracies. The response from the state is conditional on the level of political opportunity during the sequence of actions..x000d.I use the Intranational Political Interactions dataset (which provide daily events between states and dissidents) for events and duration and Polity IV for regime type. The data is analyzed using a Cox hazard model. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the voting behavior of Africans in seven countries currently ranked as "free" by Freedom House International. Thus, we are examining a select set of African countries, each of which hold regular elections at the national and local levels, support a free press and free speech and allow citizens to gather publicly to express their political views. Using the 2005 Round 3 Afrobarometer survey, we study why Africans in these seven free countries choose to support and vote for a particular political party. Studying the political choices of Africans who actually have the opportunity to make such choices tells us a great deal about the characteristics of democracy in these seven countries. What we find is surprising, interesting and encouraging. While ethnic ties affect vote choice in Africa, retrospective evaluations of economic performance are equally important. We find no evidence that patronage relations based on vote-buying have any effect on vote choice in any of the seven countries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze data from the Afrobarameter and a structured experiment on university students in Senegal. We find that although many Africans do not vote, they are politically active, and poor economic conditions positively affect participation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]