I have a deep interest in how democratic norms are built and sometimes broken in emerging democracies. My work focuses on civic education and clientelism in African political systems, exploring how learning about democracy interacts with social and institutional realities. I developed a framework of Conditional Civic Habitus, which draws from Bourdieu and Pettit to explain why civic education doesn’t always reduce clientelism unless specific enabling conditions are present.
My research combines political theory, development studies, and quantitative analysis. I’m driven by a commitment to understanding how structural inequalities shape political behavior and democratic accountability. My goal is to generate insights that inform more context-sensitive strategies for reducing clientelism and strengthening democratic institutions in the Global South.
I enjoy working across disciplines and in collaboration with scholars and practitioners focused on democracy, inequality, and political behavior in Africa. Whether through academic publications or engagement with civil society and policy actors, I’m committed to producing research that is both rigorous and relevant.
Undervisning
Party Politics
Democratic Challenges
Comperative Politics
International Law and Human Rights
Research Methods
Forskning
My research investigates how civic education interacts with contextual factors to influence the persistence of clientelism in African democracies. While civic education is widely seen as a mechanism for fostering democratic norms, this project challenges the assumption of its uniformly positive impact. Instead, it theorizes and empirically tests a “Conditional Civic Habitus” framework, which posits that the effectiveness of civic education in reducing clientelism depends on specific material, institutional, and cognitive conditions.
Theoretically, the project extends Bourdieu’s concept of habitus through Pettit’s notion of civic habitus, offering an original synthesis to explain variations in political behavior. Drawing on large-N quantitative methods, I use V-Dem data and Afrobarometer surveys to examine the relationship between civic learning and clientelist attitudes and behaviors across African countries.
The research makes two central contributions: First, it provides an alternative theoretical lens to understand the limits and potential of civic education under conditions of cognitive and economic autonomy. Second, it offers practical implications for democracy promotion, suggesting that civic education must be strategically designed to align with contextual enablers such as institutional trust, political inclusion, and educational access to achieve lasting impact.
Bridging political science, education policy, and development studies, the project brings interdisciplinary insight to pressing debates on democratic deepening in the Global South. It is of direct relevance to international organizations, education ministries, and civil society actors seeking to craft civic education programs that mitigate clientelism and strengthen democratic norms in contexts of persistent disadvantage.