Staff profile

Justin Willis' work has been largely concerned with identity, authority and social change in eastern Africa over the last two hundred years. With colleagues from Warwick and Birmingham, he recently completed work on a major ESRC-funded comparative history of elections in Kenya, Ghana and Uganda. He is now finalising a project undertaken with colleagues in Uganda and France, which looks at debates over Uganda's future in 1979-80, in the months after Amin's fall. His new research looks at the history of saving and lending in Africa since the 1940s; at present this is focused on Savings and Credit Cooperatives in Kenya.

Areas of Postgraduate Supervision

Professor Willis has supervised doctoral students working on various aspects of modern eastern African history. Currently he has students working on politics and islam on the Kenya coast since the 1950s; the history of banking in Sudan since the 1950s; ethnicity in northern Uganda in the twentieth century; and women's testimonies around violence in the Rwanda genocide. Prospective students who would like to discuss ideas for doctoral research are very welcome to contact him.

• Sudan in the 19th and 20th centuries
• electoral history
• modern East Africa
• saving and money in Africa

• 2000:

  Chevalier of the Ordre des Palmes Academiques

  : Chevalier of the Ordre des Palmes Academiques

Authored book

• Willis, J. (2002). Potent Brews. A Social History of Alcohol in East Africa 1850-1999. James Currey
• Willis, J. (1993). Mombasa, the Swahili and the Making of the Mijikenda. Clarendon Press

Chapter in book

• Willis, J., & Mwakimako, H. (2020). La côte kényane : religion, race, ethnicité et la notion fuyante de communauté politique’. In Le Kenya en Marche 2000-2020 (343-64). Open editions. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.africae.2009
• Willis, J. (2014). Alcohol licensing hours: time and temperance in Kenya. In G. Klantschnig, N. Carrier, & C. Amber (Eds.), Drugs in Africa: Histories and Ethnographies of Use, Trade and Control (89-104). Palgrave
• Willis, J. (2013). Chieftaincy. In J. Parker, & R. Reid (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Modern African History (208-23). OUP
• Willis, J. (2010). Protecting young people. Alcohol, advertising and youth in Kenya. In A. Burton, & H. Charton-Bigot (Eds.), Generations Past. Youth in East African History (279-90). Ohio University Press
• Willis, J. (2009). The King of the Mijikenda, and other stories about the kaya. Heritage, politics and histories in multi-party Kenya. In D. Peterson, & G. Macola (Eds.), Recasting the past : history writing and political work in modern Africa (233-250). Ohio University Press

Edited book

• Ryle, J., Willis, J., Baldo, S., & Jok, J. (Eds.). (2011). The Sudan Handbook. James Currey

Journal Article

• Velasco, C., & Willis, J. (online). Saving, inheritance and future-making in 1940s Kenya. Past & Present: A Journal of Historical Studies, https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtae013
• Cheeseman, N., Kanyinga, K., Lynch, G., & Willis, J. (2024). Has Kenya Democratized? Institutional strengthening and contingency in the 2022 general elections. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 18(2), 240-260. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2024.2359154
• Chome, N., & Willis, J. (2024). Debt, credit and obligation in Kenya's 2022 elections. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 18(2), 301-320. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2024.2359159
• Willis, J. (2023). Document Number Five: Elections and Tutelary Politics in Uganda, 1967–1971. The English Historical Review, 138(590-591), 281-306. https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cead080
• Lynch, G., Cheeseman, N., & Willis, J. (2019). From peace campaigns to peaceocracy: elections, order and authority in Africa. African Affairs, 118(473), 603-627. https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adz019
• Cheeseman, N., Lynch, G., Kanyinga, K., Ruteere, M., & Willis, J. (2019). Kenya's 2017 elections: winner-takes-all politics as usual?. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 13(2), 215-234. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2019.1594072
• Willis, J., Lynch, G., & Cheeseman, N. (2018). Voting, nationhood, and citizenship in late-colonial Africa. Historical Journal, 61(4), 1113-1135. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0018246x18000158
• Deacon, G., Gona, G., Mwakimako, H., & Willis, J. (2017). Preaching politics: Islam and Christianity on the Kenya coast. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 35(2), 148-167. https://doi.org/10.1080/02589001.2017.1287345
• Cheeseman, N., Lynch, G., & Willis, J. (2017). Ghana: the ebbing power of incumbency. Journal of Democracy, 28(2), 92-104. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2017.0027
• Willis, J., Lynch, G., & Cheeseman, N. (2017). “A valid electoral exercise”? Uganda’s 1980 elections and the observers’ dilemma. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 59(1), 211-238. https://doi.org/10.1017/s001041751600058x
• Perrot, S., Pommerolle, M.-E., & Willis, J. (2016). La fabrique du vote: placer la matérialité au cœur de l’analyse. Politique africaine, 144(4), 5-26. https://doi.org/10.3917/polaf.144.0005
• Mwakimako, H., & Willis, J. (2016). Islam and democracy: debating electoral involvement on the Kenya coast. Islamic Africa, 7(1), 19-43. https://doi.org/10.1163/21540993-00701001
• Cheeseman, N., Lynch, G., & Willis, J. (2016). Decentralisation in Kenya: the governance of governors. Journal of Modern African Studies, 54(01), 1-35. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022278x1500097x
• Willis, J., Lynch, G., & Cheeseman, N. (2016). La machine electorale: culture materielle des bureaux de vote au Ghana, au Kenya et en Ouganda. = The Voting Machine: The material culture of polling stations in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda. Politique africaine, 144(4), 27-50. https://doi.org/10.3917/polaf.144.0027
• Willis, J. (2015). The Southern Problem: representing Sudan's southern provinces to c. 1970. Journal of African History, 56(02), 281-300. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0021853715000249
• Willis, J. (2015). “Peace and order are in the interests of every citizen”: Elections, violence and state legitimacy in Kenya, 1957-74. The International journal of African historical studies, 48(1), 99-116
• Willis, J., Cheesman, N., & Lynch, G. (2014). Democracy and its discontents: understanding Kenya’s 2013 elections. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 8(1), 2-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2013.874105
• Willis, J., & Chome, N. (2014). Marginalization and participation on the Kenya coast: the 2013 elections. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 8(1), 115-134. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2013.844443
• Willis, J., & Gona, G. (2013). Tradition, tribe and state in Kenya: the Mijikenda Union, 1945-1980. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 55(2), 448-473. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0010417513000091
• Willis, J., & Gona, G. (2013). Pwani C Kenya? Memory, documents and secessionist politics in coastal Kenya. African Affairs, 112(446), 48-71. https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/ads064
• Willis, J. (2011). Tribal gatherings: colonial spectacle, native administration and local government in Condominium Sudan. Past & Present: A Journal of Historical Studies, 211(1), 243-268. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtq055
• Willis, J. (2011). Sudan’s Elections: Voting for Authoritarians. Africa Review, 3(1), 47-63. https://doi.org/10.1080/09744053.2011.10597304
• Willis, J., & al-Batthani, A. (2010). "We changed the laws." Electoral practice and malpractice in Sudan since 1953. African Affairs, 109(435), 191-212. https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adq003
• Mutisya, D., & Willis, J. (2009). Budget drinking: alcohol consumption in two Kenyan towns. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 3(1), 55-73. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531050802682770
• Willis, J. (2008). What has he got up his sleeve? Advertising the Kenyan presidential candidates in 2007. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2, 264-71

Other (Print)

• Willis, J., Cheeseman, N., & Lynch, G. (2017). Kenya 2017: the interim election
• Willis, J., & Mwakimako, H. (2014). Islam, politics and violence on the Kenya coast