Africa After the End of History

In 1989, Francis Fukuyama suggested that the world was converging towards liberal democracy, a political system that could not be improved upon and that therefore marked the end point of History. In many ways, Fukuyama’s vision of modernization structured the participation of African countries in the world system over the following decades: democracy promotion, foreign aid, support for sovereignty and territorial integrity, and accountable extractive industries became the norm.

More than 35 years later, the rules-based international order is in retreat and History is very much on the march again: liberal democracy is eroding around the world and is no longer a condition of Western assistance to Africa; sovereignty is both weakened internationally and invoked by repressive African regimes to justify their authoritarianism; foreign aid is in decline; non-Western powers vie for influence on the continent; and primary commodities once again attract unbridled foreign interest in a new “scramble for Africa.”

In this symposium, participants ask how the new world system is affecting African countries from the perspectives of democracy, development, sovereignty, and scholarship. Is what we thought we knew about African development still valid? Where did we go wrong? What has changed? Do we need new theories?

Four panels over the course of one day will address these questions through presentations from the scholars and Q&A sessions. In addition, students in Pomona College’s course “Politics 189L: Africa After the Endof History” will present research posters illustrating or engaging with cases and arguments made in the scholars’ essays. We invite you to explore the posters throughout the day.

You are also invited to an Africa-focused, student-curated art exhibit hosted and organized by Pomona’s Benton Museum of Art, opening at 4.00 p.m. on Thursday, October 22, as well as to an Africa’s Got Talent performance presented by the African Students Association on Friday, October 23, at 7.30 p.m. in the courtyard of the Benton Museum.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude for the generous support of Pomona College’s International Relations program, the Center for Global Engagement, the Office of the President and the Dean of the College. We are also grateful to the Benton Museum for its hospitality, its programmatic assistance, and its support and guidance for the student-curated exhibit.

Finally, we wish to single out the hard, efficient, and gracious work of Priscila Alcantara from the Politics Department, Courtney Derrico from the Center for Global Engagement and Utku Özgür from the Class of 2029.

Co-Conveners

Catherine Boone
London School of Economics

Pierre Englebert
Pomona College

Nic Cheeseman earned his D.Phil. in Politics from the University of Oxford. He is Professor of Democracy at the University of Birmingham and founding director of its Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation. His research focuses on democracy, elections, development, and authoritarianism, with extensive fieldwork across Africa. His books include Democracy in Africa: Successes, Failures, and the Struggle for Political Reform, How to Rig an Election, co-authored with Brian Klaas, Authoritarian Africa: Repression, Resistance, and the Power of Ideas, co-authored with Jonathan Fisher, and The Moral Economy of Elections in Africa: Democracy, Voting and Virtue, co-authored with Gabrielle Lynch and Justin Willis. He previously directed Oxford’s African Studies Centre and co-edited African Affairs, and is founding editor of the Oxford Encyclopaedia of African Politics.

Leonardo Villalón earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. He is Professor of Political Science and African Studies, Director of the Center for Latin American Studies, and founder and coordinator of the Sahel Research Group at the University of Florida. His research focuses on religion and politics, democratization, education, and political stability in the African Sahel. He is the author of Islamic Society and State Power in Senegal: Disciples and Citizens in Fatick, editor of The Oxford Handbook of the African Sahel, and co-editor of The Fate of Africa’s Democratic Experiments: Elites and Institutions and The African State ata CriticalJuncture: Between Disintegration and Reconfiguration. He has served as Dean of the International Center and Associate Provost, director of the Center for African Studies, and chair of the board of directors of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers.

Aili Mari Tripp earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from Northwestern University. She is the Vilas Research Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on women and politics, women’s movements, authoritarianism, and the informal economy in Africa. Her books include Women and Politics in Uganda, Museveni’s Uganda: Paradoxes of Power in a Hybrid Regime, Women and Power in Postconflict Africa, Seeking Legitimacy: Why Arab Autocracies Adopt Women’s Rights, and Why African Autocracies Promote Women as Leaders. She has served as president of the African Studies Association, vice president of the American Political Science Association, and a co-editor of the American Political Science Review.

Pierre Englebert earned his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. He is the H. Russell Smith Professor of International Relations and Professor of Politics at Pomona College, a Center for Global Engagement Faculty Fellow, and a member of the Global Pomona Council, and has served as Associate Dean of the College. His research focuses on African sovereignty, state legitimacy, and political and economic development, particularly in Francophone West and Central Africa. His books include State Legitimacy and Development in Africa, Africa: Unity, Sovereignty, and Sorrow, and Inside African Politics, co-authored with Kevin C. Dunn. He also co-edited Secessionism in African Politics: Aspiration, Grievance, Performance, Disenchantment with Lotje de Vries and Mareike Schomerus and is a co-convener of the Africa After the End of History symposium.

Utku Özgür is a sophomore at Pomona College studying Politics and History, with a minor in Economics. He serves as Managing Editor of the Claremont Journal of International Relations and Executive Editor of the Claremont Journal of Law and Public Policy, where he has published articles on African sovereignty, secessionism, and the Cyprus Dispute. Through Pomona’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program, he conducted research with Professor Englebert on state legitimacy and political and economic development in Africa and co-authored On the Lack of Liberal Convergence in Post-Cold War Africa. He received the 2026 First-Year Library Undergraduate Research Award from The Claremont Colleges Library for his paper Revolution or Restoration? Historiographical Perspectiveson theGlorious Revolution and the Evolutionof English Constitutionalism.

Catherine Boone earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the Harold Laski Professor of Political Science and Professor of Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science, with appointments in Government and International Development. Her research focuses on African political economy, land rights, territorial institutions, and regional inequalities.

Her books include Merchant Capital and the Roots of State Power in Senegal, 1930-1985, Political Topographies of the African State: Territorial Authority and Institutional Choice, Property and Political Order in Africa: Land Rights and the Structure of Politics, and Inequality and Political Cleavage in Africa: Regionalism by Design. She has served as president of the West African Research Association and secretary of the African Politics Conference Group and is a co-convener of the Africa After the End of History symposium.

Peter Lewis earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University. He holds the Warren Weinstein Chair of African Studies and serves as Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, where he has directed the Africa Studies programme since 2006. His research and teaching focus on political transitions, governance, and economic development in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Nigeria. His publications include Growing Apart: Politics and Economic Change in Indonesia and Nigeria and Coping with Crisis in African States, co-edited with John W. Harbeson. He has served as chair of the African Politics Conference Group and Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs at SAIS, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the editorial board of the Journal of Democracy.

Anne Pitcher earned her D.Phil. in Politics from the University of Oxford. She is the Joel Samoff Collegiate Professor of Political Science and Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan and a Research Professor at its Center for Political Studies. She also serves as Associate Chair and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies. Her research focuses on party politics, bureaucratic institutions, urban political economy, and the provision of public goods in Africa. Her books include Transforming Mozambique: The Politics of Privatization, 1975-2000 and Party Politics and Economic Reform in Africa’s Democracies. She served as president of the African Studies Association from 2016 to 2017 and co-edits the University of Michigan Press series African Perspectives with Kelly Askew.

Ricardo Soares de Oliveira earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. He is Professor of Political Science at Sciences Po’s Centre for International Studies and a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on African political economy, natural resources, post-colonial statehood, and global financial networks. He is the author of Oil and Politics in the Gulf of Guinea and Magnificent and Beggar Land: Angola Since the Civil War, and co-editor of China Returns to Africa: A Rising Power and a Continent Embrace and The New Protectorates: International Tutelage and the Making of Liberal States. He previously served as Professor of the International Politics of Africa at Oxford and joint editor of African Affairs, and co-edits the Oxford University Press series Oxford Studies in African Politics and International Relations.

Jessica Piombo earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is an Associate Professor in the Institute for Regional and International Security at the Naval Postgraduate School, where she teaches African politics, U.S. foreign policy, comparative politics, and ethnic conflict. Her research focuses on political transitions, peacebuilding, governance after conflict, and international assistance. She is the author of Institutions, Ethnicity, and Political Mobilization in South Africa, editor of The U.S. Militaryin Africa:Enhancing Securityand Development?,and co-editorof Interim Governments: Institutional Bridges to Peace and Democracy? and Electoral Politics in South Africa: Assessing the First Democratic Decade. She has served as vice-chair of the African Politics Conference Group and chair of the faculty at the Naval Postgraduate School.

William Reno earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin. He is Professor of Political Science and chair of the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University. He also serves as interim director of Northwestern’s Program of African Studies, which he previously directed from 2012 to 2018. His research focuses on political violence, state collapse, armed groups, and foreign military assistance, drawing on extensive fieldwork in Africa and the Middle East. His books include Corruption and State Politics in Sierra Leone, Warlord Politics and African States, and Warfare in Independent Africa.

Mamoudou Gazibo earned his doctorate in Political Science from Montesquieu University Bordeaux IV. He is Professor of Political Science at the Université de Montréal. His research focuses on comparative political institutions and democratization in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as China’s relations with Africa. His books include Les paradoxes de la démocratisation en Afrique: Analyse institutionnelle et stratégique, Introduction à la politiqueafricaine,and Unnouvel ordremondial madein China?,co-authored withRoromme Chantal. He served as president of the African Politics Conference Group, the African Politics section of the American Political Science Association, from 2014 to 2016.

Jaimie Bleck earned her Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University. She is the Bernard L. and Bertha F. Cohen Chair and Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University, having previously taught at the University of Notre Dame. Her research focuses on citizenship, education, civil society, and democratization in Africa, particularly Mali. Her books include Education and Empowered Citizenship in Mali and ElectoralPolitics in Africa Since 1990:Continuity and Change, co-authoredwith Nicolasvan de Walle. She received the African Politics Conference Group’s Lynne Rienner Award for Best Dissertation in African Politics and is a co-principal investigator of the African Governance Innovations Lab.

Sebastian Elischer earned his Ph.D. from Jacobs University Bremen. He is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. His research focuses on the relationship between identities and institutions, particularly political parties, ethnicity, political Islam, and democratization in sub-Saharan Africa. His books include Political Parties in Africa: Ethnicity and Party Formation and Salafism and Political Order in Africa. He serves as a co-editor of the African Studies Review and has chaired the African Politics Conference Group’s Best Book Award committee.

Zachariah Mampilly earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the Marxe Endowed Chair of International Affairs at Baruch College and a member of the doctoral faculty at the CUNY Graduate Center. His research focuses on rebel governance, popular protest, and violent and nonviolent political movements in Africa and South Asia. His publications include Rebel Rulers: InsurgentGovernance and Civilian Life DuringWar, Africa Uprising: Popular Protestand Political Change, co-authored with Adam Branch, and the co-edited volumes Rebel Governance in Civil Wars and Peacemaking: From Practice to Theory. He is a co-founder of the Program on African Social Research and previously served as director of the Africana Studies Program at Vassar College.

Mareike Schomerus earned her Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is a Vice President at Busara Center for Behavioral Economics and a visiting lecturer at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. Her research focuses on violent conflict, peacebuilding, and behavioral approaches to development, particularly in South Sudan and Uganda. Her books include The Lord’s Resistance Army: Violence and Peacemaking in Africa and Lives Amid Violence: Transforming Development in the Wake of Conflict, and she co-edited Secessionism in African Politics: Aspiration, Grievance, Performance, Disenchantment. A former broadcast journalist, she previously directed the Politics and Governance programme and served as research director of the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium at the Overseas Development Institute.

John Clark earned his Ph.D. in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia. He is Professor of Politics and International Relations at Florida International University. His research focuses on African state-society relations, democratization, and international relations, particularly in Central Africa. His publications include The Failure of Democracy in the Republicof Congo, Africa’s InternationalRelations: Balancing Domestic and GlobalInterests, co-authored with Beth Elise Whitaker, the edited volume The African Stakes of the Congo War, and Political Reform in Francophone Africa, co-edited with David E. Gardinier. He served as vice-chair of the African Politics Conference Group from 2007 to 2009 and has chaired Florida International University’s Departments of International Relations and Politics and International Relations.

Anne Mette Kjær earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from Aarhus University. She is Professor of Political Science at Aarhus University in Denmark. Her research focuses on governance and the political economy of development in East Africa, particularly Uganda. Her books include Governance, The Politics of African Industrial Policy: A Comparative Perspective, co-authored with Lindsay Whitfield, Ole Therkildsen, and Lars Buur, and the co-edited volumes The Politics of Revenue Bargaining in Africa: Triggers, Processes, and Outcomes and Perspectives on Politics, Production and Public Administration in Africa: Essays in Honour of Ole Therkildsen. She has served as chair of Denmark’s Development Policy Council and on the boards of the Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy and DanChurchAid.