I’m a Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and Research Fellow at the Centre for Comparative and International Politics at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. My main interests are in African and International Politics, often focusing on the intersections of the global and the local.
I’m an interdisciplinary scholar, and my research crosses the conventional boundaries of African Politics, International Relations, Security Studies, and sometimes Development Studies.
My previous work has focused on the politics and discourses of democracy as forms of power in global politics. I have also worked with critical perspectives on security, including the impact of global private security and the securitization of development.
My current research explores Africa’s position in the changing world order, as well as the impact of contemporary radical conservative movements –
a global right – on international order and foreign policy.
My most recent book is the co-authored World of the Right: Radical Conservatism and Global Order (2024). My previous books include Security Beyond the State: Private Security in International Politics (2011), which I co-authored with Michael C. Williams.
Other books include Disciplining Democracy: Development Discourse and Good Governance in Africa (2000), and the edited volumes Conflict and Security in Africa (2013) and with Anna Leander, The Routledge Handbook of Private Security Studies (2016).
My articles have appeared in leading international journals in various academic fields, including African Affairs, Alternatives, International Political Sociology, Global Studies Quarterly, Journal of Modern African Studies, Political Studies, Review of International Studies, Review of African Political Economy, Security Dialogue, and Third World Quarterly.
I was joint editor of African Affairs, the highest ranked journal in African studies, from 2009 to 2014. In the six years from 2017-2023, I was the Director of the Centre for International Policy (CIPS) at the University of Ottawa.
My first academic job was in the Department of International Politics at the University of Aberystwyth, a vibrant intellectual experience which continues to shape my outlook and scholarly approach. I have held numerous visiting academic positions, most recently as a Research Fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study (STIAS) in South Africa and as a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) at University College London. For the academic year 2025-26, I am a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Birmingham, UK. If you want to get to know more about me, listen to this conversation with Professor Brent Steele on the Hayseed Scholar.
My research is centrally concerned with Africa’s position in international affairs, seeking to develop a distinct theoretical and methodological approach to the study of Africa as simultaneously a place in the world and a place of the world, taking account of the uniqueness of place and its simultaneous globality.
Throughout my career, I have sought to bridge the disciplines of African Politics and International Relations, studying how the international is articulated in African settings and Africa’s impact on the global. My first book, Discipling Democracy (2000) is an example of this, analysing the interaction of internal and external demands for democracy on the African continent.
Recently, I have explored Pan-African visions of world order, seeking to take Pan-Africanism seriously as a political ideology in global politics. I have also written extensively on security, often drawing on insights from international political sociology.
My co-authored book Security Beyond the State (2011) developed the idea of global security assemblages as a means of understanding transnational actors and security orders, using case studies from Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and South Africa. International political sociology also guides my work on global militarism in Africa.
My current research focuses on the impact of the global Right on world order and foreign policies. In the book World of the Right: Radical Conservatism and Global Order (2024), my colleagues and I develop an understanding of the globality of the radical Right, its ideology and forms of interconnectedness. I’m currently writing a book about the unique position of South Africa and the Afrikaner minority within the narratives and imaginaries of the contemporary global radical Right. Stay tuned for future publications.
