Elect Your New Chair and Your New Treasurer!

Dear APCG community,

We invite you to vote for the positions of Chair/Chair Elect and Treasurer. Please view the candidate statements below and cast your vote here: https://udenver.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_damk32tyZnPjBsy

Voting will remain open through November 23.

Candidates for Chair/Chair Elect – serves one year as chair elect and two years as chair:

George Bob-Milliar, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology: I am excited to be nominated for the position of chair of APCG. Over the years, it has been a delight being part of the APCG family and seeing the executive board’s great work to advance scholarship on African politics and promote the professional development of Africa-based early-career scholars. Between 2019 and 2021, I contributed to advance the APCG mandate by serving as vice-chair. In earlier periods, I had the opportunity to serve on APCG awards committees. I welcome the opportunity to continue serving this great and noble association if elected. As chair, I will complement our efforts to expand and integrate APCG activities into Africa-based scholarly associations and create new venues for research collaboration. Second, related to the above, is to embark on membership recruitment by bringing onboard political scientists based on the continent. Third, I am committed to expanding the Research Development Group programme to many early career scholars, especially female political scientists. Finally, African political science research is invisible to the scholarly world. I would work to highlight research from the continent.

I am a Ghanaian working at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi. I am an Associate Professor, and I have researched, taught, and mentored students at all levels in the Department of History and Political Studies since August 2013. I had the privilege of being appointed by the University Council to Chair the History and Political Studies department on three occasions. I am the Director of the Centre for Cultural and African Studies (CeCASt), a research centre in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

I trained as an interdisciplinary scholar. Consequently, my research lies at the intersection of political science, history & development studies. I am interested in democratization, focusing on political parties, political behaviour, elections, informal institutions, social/political history, and African Diaspora. I am a senior researcher with the Nordic Africa Institute based in Sweden, an adjunct African Studies professor at the University of Copenhagen, and a Research Associate of the Governance and Local Development Institute (GLD) at the University of Gothenburg. I have been a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, Uganda’s Makerere University, and the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS). I have delivered guest lectures/seminars at the Johannes Gutenberg University, the University of San Francisco, the University of Bayreuth, Yale University, the University of Florida, Wits University, and the University of Birmingham, among others. In 2010, I received the inaugural African Author Prize for the best article published in African Affairs by an author based at an African institution, and in 2012, I was awarded a prize for his contribution to research on African policy issues from the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Canada. I jointly edit African Affairs, African Economic History, and Contemporary Journal of African Studies, and I sit on the editorial boards of several other reputable journals.

Elliott Green, London School of Economics and Political Science: I am happy to put forward a nomination for chair of the APCG. As regards my background, I have spent the past 25 years at the LSE doing both qualitative and quantitative work on African political economy and development, with a focus on national and ethnic identity. I’ve been a member of the APCG for almost twenty years and have served in the past on the APCG best book, best dissertation and APSA panel committees. As regards the APSA, I have presented on numerous occasions on APCG-sponsored panels at the APSA annual meeting in the past, and currently serve as a member of the Executive Committee of the APSA Comparative Politics Section. I see the APCG as playing an important role in promoting research on African politics not only within the big three scholarly associations (APSA, ASA and ISA) but also in finding new ways to encourage and fund scholars within Africa in order to promote more international and inter-continental scholarship. The APCG should be at the forefront of developing links with new institutions such as the African School of Economics and the African School of Governance as well as older more established universities across the continent, which could include an attempt to revive in some form the APSA Africa workshops which came to an end in 2015.

Melina Platas, NYU-Abu Dhabi: I am grateful for the opportunity to be considered as a candidate for chair of the APCG. I am an associate professor at New York University Abu Dhabi, where I have been since 2016. My research falls broadly within the realm of political economy of development, and I am particularly interested in the historical and contemporary factors that influence outcomes like health and education. Most of my work has taken place in the context of sub-Saharan Africa, and especially Uganda, where I worked in journalism before starting an academic career. Some of the things I would hope to prioritize in the coming years – with the input of the APCG membership – include: 1) building more robust relationships between researchers and decision makers in African countries, 2) increasing public engagement and sharing our work beyond academic and policy circles (e.g. strengthening ties with local media in places where we work), and 3) strengthening ties with institutions of higher education within Africa. I feel that too often the research we do, though frequently motivated by real-time and real-world challenges we hope to help address, remains within in the confines of North American and European academic institutions and publications. Many of us make individual efforts to share our research with the places and communities for which our findings are most pertinent, but it is difficult work that we are not usually trained or professionally incentivized to do. Of course, I would also seek to continue the organization’s efforts to support members in our central mission as scholars – to conduct research on African politics. We have much to contribute to the understanding of politics within our own discipline of political science, and much to share with those who study Africa from other disciplinary lenses.

Candidate for Treasurer:

Anna Mwaba, Smith College: It is an honor to be nominated for the position of APCG Treasurer. I have long valued APCG’s mission to advance scholarship and foster a deeper understanding of African politics. As a member for several years, I have experienced the organization’s supportive and collaborative spirit. I am eager to contribute to APCG’s continued success by ensuring responsible financial stewardship and encouraging greater engagement from both current and prospective members. I believe that sound financial management is essential to sustaining APCG’s mission and expanding its impact. I am currently an Assistant Professor of Government at Smith College, where my research focuses on the role of African international and regional organizations, namely the African Union, Southern African Development Community, and the Economic Community of West African States, in election observation and peace and security. My research has taken me to Botswana, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Zambia, and my work seeks to highlight the significant contributions of African organizations to international relations. I hold a doctorate in Political Science from the University of Florida, with concentrations in comparative politics and international relations.

You can vote here: https://udenver.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_damk32tyZnPjBsy

Thank you in advance for your participation.

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