Assess graduate students' ability to analyze how informal institutions—clientelism, patronage, and social networks—shaped electoral behavior and outcomes in Sub‑Saharan Africa from 1990 to 2015; expected skills include explaining theoretical mechanisms (vote‑buying, mobilization, information flows), identifying measurement challenges, evaluating empirical methods (comparative cases, surveys, electoral data, qualitative fieldwork), synthesizing regional patterns, and critiquing causal claims and policy implications.