Explaining case selection in African politics research

Abstract

It is common to test general claims about politics in Africa with evidence from a small number of countries. This note examines patterns in the countries of study in two Anglophone African politics journals over two decades. Countries with larger populations are studied more, while former French colonies are under-represented. There is no bias towards former-British colonies once one controls for population and former-French colonial status. These biases suggest that Anglophone research on African politics produces results not about African politics in general, but rather about politics in a narrow and novel subset of countries.