Event Date: October 5, 2022 - 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm
Location: FSS 4004

Presented by CIPS

Two years after President Ouattara won a contested election that was boycotted by the opposition, Côte d’Ivoire appears more peaceful despite the high level of political polarization. This talk analyses the electoral violence that took place during the 2020 Presidential elections and shows that conflicts between the candidates are transformed into conflicts between communities, thus threatening national unity. Based on original data and personal participation in election monitoring, the talk argues that accurate information about electoral violence is crucial for preventing future violence. It also discusses the current situation in the country and argues that important work in educating the population still remains to be done in order to appropriate the democratic spirit and the civic responsibility that it requires.

This talk will be bilingual French/English.

Speaker:

Arsène Brice Bado, Ph.D., is assistant professor of political science and international relations at CERAP/Université Jésuite in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Prior to his time at CERAP, Bado was a Southern Voices Network (SVN) Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, in 2015. He was also a visiting researcher at Yale University during the 2014-2015 academic year, and the 2017-2018 Anna and Donald Waite Endowed Chair at Creighton University in Omaha, USA. His research interests include democracy, ethnic pluralism, conflict analysis, forced migration, electoral processes in conflict-ridden societies, and environmental issues. His publications have appeared in the Journal of International Migration and Integration, the Journal of Modern African Studies, Mediterranean Politics, Revue Études, Revue Relations, and La Civiltà Cattolica. In addition, he has contributed chapters to several books. He is the editor of Dynamiques des guerres civiles en Afrique: Une approche holiste, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2015 ; and La citoyenneté mondiale et l’écocitoyenneté dans le contexte de la crise sanitaire à Covid-19, Abidjan : Editions du CERAP, 2022. He obtained his Ph.D. in political science from Laval University in Canada in 2016.

Professor Bado’s visit to CIPS is sponsored by the VISITING RESEARCHERS PROGRAM (CAMEROON, COTE D’IVOIRE, SENEGAL) from the Office of the Vice President, Research and Innovation (OVPRI) at the University of Ottawa.

Chair:

Dr. Rita Abrahamsen, Director of CIPS and Professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa. Her research interests are in African politics and security, Africa and International Relations, postcolonial theory, as well as the Global Right.