2026 Conference
The Political Parties in Africa Project (PPA), supported by the Institute for Democracy, Citizenship and Public Policy in Africa (IDCPPA), invites paper proposals for our 7th annual conference on 06 & 13 March 2026. The conference will take place virtually.
Panel 1: Friday March 06 2pm-3:30pm
Title: Dominant Parties, Factionalism, and Post-Liberation Rule
This panel examines how dominant and liberation-era parties manage power, succession, and internal conflict over time. It focuses on factionalism, breakaways, and elite control as mechanisms shaping party evolution and democratic outcomes in post-liberation and long-ruling party systems.
Panel 2: Friday March 06 4pm-5:30pm
Title: Inside the Party: Institutions, Money, and Internal Democracy
This panel looks inward, examining political parties as organisations. It explores how internal rules, finances, selectorates, and informal power structures shape candidate selection, legislative autonomy, and democratic consolidation.
Panel 3: Friday March 13 2pm-3:30pm
Title: Parties, Campaigns, and the Infrastructure of Political Control
This panel examines the tools, resources, and infrastructures—both coercive and communicative—that parties use to compete, persuade, and control. It bridges democratic and authoritarian contexts to show how campaigns extend beyond elections.
Panel 4: Friday March 13 4pm-5:30pm
Title: Representation, Identity, and Political Inclusion
This panel focuses on who parties and political institutions represent—and how. It brings together work on ethnicity, class, gender, and post-conflict marginalisation to interrogate changing patterns of political inclusion and exclusion.
The conference programme can be found here.