Michael Bratton

Michael Bratton is University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and African Studies at Michigan State University. He is a founder of the Afrobarometer and the author of Public Opinion, Democracy, and Markets in Africa (2005).

October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4

Zimbabwe’s Long Agony

Once hailed as liberators, Zimbabwe’s ruling party now clings to power through violent repression. How did the country’s founding father become its dictator, and what patterns in his party’s past foretold such an outcome?

July 1998, Volume 9, Issue 3

Second Elections in Africa

The early 1990s saw a wave of competitive multiparty elections in Africa. These contests can be described as "founding" elections in the sense that they marked for various countries a transition from an extended period of authoritarian rule to fledgling democratic government. By the middle of the 1990s, this wave had crested. Although founding elections…

How People View Democracy

No serious student of democracy can afford to be without this book. It offers an original and comprehensive view of what citizens around the world think as democracy's global "third wave" prepares to enter its fourth and perhaps most challenging decade.