Anne Pitcher, U-M professor of political science and Afroamerican and African studies, asserts that the contested results of Mozambique’s recent general elections, which saw violence, vote rigging and a landslide victory for the ruling party, could jeopardize an August peace deal: “Irregularities affect the magnitude of the results — but not the eventual winner.”

Pitcher studies the comparative politics of developing countries, especially those in Africa. Her current research examines party politics, bureaucratic institutions, urban political economy, and the provision of goods such as housing, water, electricity and health care in authoritarian as well as democratic environments including Angola, Mozambique, Kenya and South Africa.