International Forum for Democratic Studies Research Council Member

Michael Bratton

Michigan State University

Michael Bratton conducts research on democracy in Africa at Michigan State University, where he is University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and African Studies. He is also a founder and former executive director of the Afrobarometer, a cross-national survey research project on public opinion in Africa and a member institute of the Forum’s Network of Democracy Research Institutes.

Dr. Bratton received his B.A. from the University of Exeter (UK) and Ph.D. from Brandeis University. He was a post-doctoral fellow with the Rockefeller Foundation and a program officer with the Ford Foundation.

He is the author or editor of six books, including Power Politics in Zimbabwe (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2014), Voting and Democratic Citizenship in Africa (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2013) and Public Opinion, Democracy and Markets in Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2005, with Robert Mattes and E. Gyimah-Boadi).

His articles appear in outlets like The American Journal of Political Science, World Politics, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, World Development, The Journal of Democracy, and The British Journal of Political Science and as chapters in various edited volumes.

He has served as a consultant to the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, and the US Agency for International Development as well as numerous other international donor agencies and NGOs. He has also served as Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and as a visiting fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University.


Forum Publications

“The Meaning of Democracy: Anchoring the D-word in Africa,” Journal of Democracy (Oct. 2011)

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