Dr. Meshack Simati, a 2018 Political Science Ph.D. graduate of Georgia State, had a new book published by Routledge on post-election violence in Africa.
The book, entitled Post-Election Violence in Africa: The Impact of Judicial Independence, discusses the impact of the judiciary on the incidence of post-election violence by political actors across Africa and within African states through case studies and cross-national analysis. Simati argues that compared to non-independent or fully independent judiciaries, quasi-independent judiciaries pose a danger for democratizing countries because challengers view judges under quasi-independent judiciaries as most likely to be influenced to strategically defect under conditions of electoral uncertainty which is brought about by post-election violence.
Simati is currently an Assistant Professor at California State University, San Marcos. In 2017 he was awarded a $20,000 US Institute for Peace fellowship to become the 2017-2018 USIP Peace Scholar. His research areas are electoral rules, elections, election violence, and judicial independence in sub-Saharan Africa.
For more information about the book, click here.