My Research Interests:

My early research focused largely on the country of Namibia in Southern Africa. My book, Labor and Democracy in Namibia, 1971-1996, published by Ohio University Press and James Currey in 1998, traces the origins and evolution of the trade union movement and the role of organized labor in the democratization process in Namibia in the early years of independence. I have also published several articles and book chapters on aspects of politics and society in Namibia. In early 2005, Scott D. Taylor and I published Politics in Southern Africa: State and Society in Transition, a book that has been used in many university classrooms, with Lynne Rienner Publishers. A revised second edition of that book, Politics in Southern Africa: Transition and Transformation, was published in mid 2011. In early 2006, Hannah E. Britton and I published Women in African Parliaments, an edited volume that examines five African countries with high levels of women's legislative representation, also with Lynne Rienner Publishers. Research for that book began during a January to August 2002 sabbatical leave when I was a Visiting Researcher at the Institute for Public Policy Research in Windhoek, Namibia. That work spawned other work on electoral gender quotas in Africa. During a January to July 2009 sabbatical leave, I was a Visiting Researcher in the the Department of Sociology at the University of Botswana in Gaborone, Botswana. Based on that research I published one article on women's underrepresentation in parliament in Botswana and another on the women's movement in Botswana. In early 2011 my book, Women in Executive Power: A Global Overview, co-edited with Manon Tremblay, was published by Routledge. In summer 2010 I co-directed the APSA Africa Workshop focused on Politics and Gender with Aili Mari Tripp, Fenella Mukangara and Shireen Hassim. The workshop was held at the Kunduchi Beach Hotel and Resort in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and co-sponsored by the University of Dar es Salaam Gender Centre. In summer 2011 I returned to Botswana to undertake research on women chiefs, with research supported by the UD Institute for Global Studies.

For more on sabbatical and recent research in Gaborone, check out my blog: DumelafromBotswana
For more on three weeks in Dar es Salaam and environs courtesy of the APSA Africa Workshop, check out my blog: hamjambofromtanzania

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Last updated 12/20/11.