International Advisory Board

Larry Diamond is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Professor of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford University, co-editor of the Journal of Democracy, and co-director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. He has written extensively on the factors that facilitate and obstruct democratic development, including in Class Ethnicity and Democracy in Nigeria: The Failure of the First Republic (Macmillan, 1988), Developing Democracy: Towards Consolidation (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999) and The Spirit of Democracy (Times Books, 2008).

Audrey Gadzekpo is Senior Lecturer, School of Communications Studies, University of Ghana and currently Visiting Scholar at Northwestern University’s African Studies Program. Having previously worked in the field of journalism for 15 years, Dr. Gadzekpo now researches media, gender and governance issues, including in her most recent book on Violence Against Women and Children in Ghana. She was co-interviewer for the first ever televised presidential debate in Ghana and program coordinator in Ghana for the World Bank Media Capacity Enhancement Program.

Abdalla Hamdok is regional Director, Africa and Middle East, for the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA). An economist and policy analyst, Dr. Hamdok has over twenty years of experience addressing governance challenges in Africa. He was formerly Chief Technical Advisor to the International Labor Organization in Southern Africa (Harare, 1995-1997), Principal Economist in the Policy Division of the Central Operation Department of the African Development Bank (Abidjan, 1997-2001), and Senior Governance Expert, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Addis Ababa, 2001-3).

Patrick Molutsi is Executive Secretary to the Botswana Tertiary Education Council. A political sociologist by training, he received his D. Phil from Oxford University, he was formerly dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Botswana. He is both a scholar and practitioner, having published Development Strategies in Southern Africa (1985) and Democracy in Botswana (1989), as well as having served as Director of Field Programs (2001-2) and Director of Political Participation and Democracy Analysis (2002-3) for International IDEA in Stockholm, Sweden.

Benno Ndulu recently joined the Africa Region of the World Bank, where he serves as an Advisor to the Vice President. Previously he was Research Manager for Bank-wide research support in the office of the World Bank’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President. He is best known for his involvement in setting up and developing the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), one of the most effective research and training networks in Africa. Prof. Ndulu (Ph.D. Economics, Northwestern) has published widely on growth adjustment, governance and trade and served on various international advisory boards.

Mitchell Seligson is Centennial Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University and founder and director of the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP). A leading scholar in democratization and mass politics, he has received fellowships from the Kellogg Institute, Fulbright program, and Rockefeller Foundation and almost fifty research grants from various research and development assistance agencies. He has served regularly as a consultant to USAID and the World Bank, but is perhaps best known for his fourteen books, most recently, The Legtimacy Puzzle in Latin America: Political Support and Democracy in Eight Nations (Cambridge University Press, 2009), Development and Underdevelopment: The Political Economy of Global Inequality (4th edition, 2008) and The Legitimacy Puzzle in Latin America (Cambridge UP, 2009).