Patty Vest: Welcome to Sagecast, the Podcast of Pomona College. I'm Patty Vest. Mark Wood: And I'm Mark Wood. Patty Vest: In these extraordinary times, we're coming to you from our various homes as we all shelter in place. Mark Wood: This season on Sagecast, we're talking to Pomona faculty and alumni about the personal, professional and intellectual journeys that have brought them to where they are today. Patty Vest: Today we're talking with Pierre Englebert, the H. Russell Smith professor of international relations and professor of politics at Pomona College. Pierre has spent more than 30 years studying African politics and development with a focus on Francophone West and Central Africa. Mark Wood: Welcome, Pierre. Good to- Pierre Englebert: Thank you. Mark Wood: ... have you with us. It's good to see you. Pierre Englebert: Good to be- Mark Wood: Even if it is in cyberspace. Pierre Englebert: Same here. Mark Wood: So how have you adjusted to life in the time of COVID-19? Pierre Englebert: Like everybody else some struggles, but there's also some silver lining. It's nice to have the kids back at home and we all spend a lot of time together. And there's some blessings hidden in there. So we're making the best of it. Patty Vest: Pierre, you were born and educated in Belgium. Tell us about your early years and what were you like as a child? Pierre Englebert: Oh, my goodness. I was born there. I was partly educated there and I did my undergrad degree at University of Brussels and then I moved to the US. Yeah, grew up in Brussels, and one of a family of four boys. I was number two. And I went to this catholic school for like 12 years nonstop from first grade to 12th grade and was fairly traditional education, studied Latin and Greek and taught by priests and really the old catholic European model from which I fully recovered and- Patty Vest: An ongoing process. Pierre Englebert: Yeah. Yeah. Then after graduating from high school in 1980 I went to University of Brussels where I studied political science and international relations. And then at the end of that I applied to go to masters degree at Johns Hopkins, and that's how I got into the US. Mark Wood: So how did you first get interested in Africa? Did that happen in college or was it something that happened along the way? Pierre Englebert: It really mostly happened in college, although I have to say a little seed was planted by my aunt. I have an aunt who lived in Paris and had a shelter for immigrant women, and we'd visit it often and she did some programs whereby they would get on a bus and then they would visit also in Belgium and she would place these women with families for weekends or weeks. And then we always hosted some. And this way I kind of at an earlier age I got in touch with what we call the third world of people coming from Africa and from other regions outside of Europe. And I think that her vocation there, her dedication to that gave me a curiosity I'd say about those regions. Pierre Englebert: But then mostly when I was at University of Brussels there were a lot of African students. Belgium has a colonial past and lots of Congolese students at University of Brussels, some other Africans. And I befriended a few of them and I became very interested in the contrast between what they were talking about and what we were living in Europe. So at the time in the early '80s, it was an exciting time in Europe. European integration was really moving forward at a faster pace than before. There was a strong connection between France and Germany, and there was a sense that my goodness, we are all Europeans here and we might be finally moving beyond the divisions of the century and the wars and creating a state when you think about it. Pierre Englebert: So as a political scientist, I was very excited by these things, but my friends from Africa were talking about things that were so much more fundamental in some ways about politics being a matter of life and death, about basic freedoms, about corruption, things that of course existed also in Europe but we're so much more salient in Africa, such a bigger part of their experience that I became curious about that contrast. And so at first it was mostly at an informal level. I did not really explore that intellectually, but I became aware of it. And then as a junior, I had a class with Professor [inaudible 00:04:46] in African politics, and it was one of those epiphanies. She was fantastic. And I think I was kind of ready because of these conversations with my African friends and slowly she was offering a theoretical analytical lens from which to make sense of some of these features. Pierre Englebert: And I became so curious by how different Africa was and how much more fundamental to life politics was. And I kind of disconnected from this European thing, which became much more boring to me. It's like, "Yeah, big deal." Standardization of rules across European countries, my goodness, that is tedious. And so that kind of developed that interest. Still it was a fairly theoretical level. And then this is kind of a weird part of the story, but it's really the crucial one. Really I had a band in those days. And so I was doing politics as a major really so that I would have some backup and to please my parents, but my goal was definitely to be a rockstar to at least go on in life with music. And I had a band and we were performing, and most weekends, we gave little gigs here and there. Pierre Englebert: But when I was a junior, the band broke up and it was a very traumatic thing for me. And I got bitter. And then I kind of when the band fell apart after... I mean, I had done this since high school and had several bands, but this was one that I had hoped for. I kind of responded by rejecting all of it and I went and sold my guitar and my amplifier. And I got enough money then to buy a ticket to Upper Volta. I'm like, "Okay. I'm done with this. What's the most radically different I can do now? How can I run away from all this agony with the band?" And I found a ticket to Ouagadougou, and it came perfectly at the time because I had just had that class. And so I was kind of developing that new interest and it was sitting there waiting to be activated if you will. And this music downturn led me to explore that. Pierre Englebert: And so in the summer of 1983, I found it myself on the plane to Ouagadougou, Upper Volta, which no longer exists as Upper Volta. It's now called Burkina Faso. It was renamed the following year. And when I got there that same month a few weeks earlier there had been a coup. Some young captains had taken over power and had declared a revolution with support from Gaddafi from Libya. So there I am, a 20 year old, and I arrive in this West African country, which is as different from Belgium as you can imagine, and they're starting a revolution. Like, "What? This is incredible and fascinating and power to the people." And I attended meetings and I went to revolutionary defense committees and I spent two months in that country traveling around. I went to Cote d'Ivoire also and Togo, and I stayed with a local family. Pierre Englebert: And it transformed me. I came back and was like, "Whoa! There's another world. It's fascinating. There are people struggling with really fundamental issues." I must tell you, I was stunned by poverty. Poverty really was hard for me to deal with. I had not been exposed to that kind of poverty and deprivation. Upper Volta remains but it was then already one of the poorest countries on earth with the capita income of a few hundred dollars a year. I mean, and you can really see what it means in terms of people's lives, the quality of life and hardship. Pierre Englebert: And now there's often the criticism and it's a legitimate one, of this whole white savior approach to African poverty. But when you're first confronted with it, especially as a young man still developing kind of intellectual, it's hard not to be shaken by that and not to come back thinking we share humanity with these people, how can we help, how can we do something? And you feel like a certain calling that you can not exist comfortably in your world once you become aware of what's out there. And so I started studying African politics. I wrote my senior thesis on that country and on their revolution. And one thing led to another, and here I am. Patty Vest: Do you still play guitar? Pierre Englebert: I still do. You know what? I don't know if it's the irony but I've come full circle. I have a band again, though it's just me. I have a one man band. But over the last few years I've got back into it and I've been recording and composing and... Yeah. So now thank God for tenure. I've been able to re-indulge with my first love. Yeah. So I'm on Spotify. You can go and find everything. Patty Vest: All right. We'll have to check it out. Pierre Englebert: But still Africa remains my first interest. Mark Wood: So I know you're not the kind of scholar who spends all of his time in libraries. You've spent a lot of time on the ground in Africa. Can you tell us a little bit about your more recent travels there and how you do your research? Pierre Englebert: Yeah. I mean, like everybody else, it's been tough this year. I was supposed to be in Niger last month and I was supposed to be in Congo in May. Usually as soon as classes end I'm off to Africa. It's good that we have a big chunk of time and it's hard to do serious field work in a very short amount of time. So whenever I can have a few weeks I go. And so now I have not gone back to Africa since last December when I was in Congo. But mostly I work on two big projects these days. The Democratic Republic of Congo is certainly the country that I work on the most. And I've recently finished the field work for a large project that looks at Congo's decentralization and the provinces and try to explain variations in how provinces do in terms of governance and things like that. Pierre Englebert: So I've traveled through the country. There are 26 provinces and I've done nine of them, and essentially interviewing provincial authorities, local elites but also civil society members, academics, people who are part of socio-cultural association and stuff like that. So it's been a fairly qualitative research project with a lot of interviews. But also I call it data, budget data, like the data on the... For example, I compare the performance provincial assemblies. So [inaudible 00:11:55] identify how many decrees they have adopted, whether they passed the budget, whether it was on time, what kind of delay, the number of taxes that they've approved and the ratio of tax collection over expectation. So stuff like that, which I collect from the raw material and then I create indicators from that of a provincial capacity. But it's a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, which is true in general with my research. Pierre Englebert: Now, what I do because I'm based here in California and I have a family and I'm not really at liberty to be gone for years on end, I work with Congolese or African colleagues often. So I establish teams and then we work together and then it becomes collective projects. So in this case, I have a team at University of Lubumbashi in Katanga and that's kind of the... Those are the co-investigators with me. And then we get together and then we traveled together, but then also when I'm not there, they continue to keep the project alive and continue interviews and data collection. Pierre Englebert: So we have a book coming out now later this year. It's in French but still on Congo's decentralization policies, and then a few articles are coming out in English from this project. And then I have another big project which is about security and looking at how African states respond to security threats. And this one compares countries in the horn of Africa, mostly Ethiopia and Kenya, with countries in the region we call the Sahel, which is West African region between the Gulf of Guinea and the Sahara. And mostly I'm looking at Mali, Burkina, and Niger. Pierre Englebert: And if you look at this countries, they've all come under significant terrorist threats and attacks. And some of them, for example, in the horn, Ethiopia has responded very forcefully and has taken ownership of its security. Kenya on the other hand is much more delegating to outside actors like the US, et cetera, same thing in the Sahel. You see Mali is completely surrendering its security to the French and the UN. Say, "Okay. You take care of this and we do business as usual in Bamako." And Niger is on the other extreme and Burkina in between. Pierre Englebert: So we're trying to explain with a colleague, Jessica Piombo at Naval Postgraduate School, we're trying to explain where do these variations come from. Why do some countries take their own security more seriously than others? Why are some so eager to delegate to outside actors, often former colonial masters, and others are more owning? And how does that relate to domestic dimensions of politics? Issues of patronage, issues of ethnic distribution of power, issues of the political economy of natural resources and stuff like that. Pierre Englebert: So in that case with Jessica we do field work and then there's a lot of interviews. We meet with security people in the state. We meet with outside actors who train the security forces and have different perception of the local responses. Again, we meet with civil society actors and things like that. So this project also has a lot of data, has data on government spending, on counter-terrorism and security and outside assistance. But it's also based largely on field work and interviews. Yeah. Patty Vest: Pierre, as we deal with the pandemic let's talk a little bit the pandemic and how that affects your work, but also the areas that you study. Not much attention is being paid here in the US to what COVID is doing in Africa. How bad is it and how bad do you think it may get? Pierre Englebert: That's a good question. I have to preface my answer by saying I've not really studied this closely because I'm like everybody else, a little bit COVID saturated. And so when I do my African politics research it's like a place where I go and shelter away from [inaudible 00:16:00], right? But of course, I mean, I read and I'm somewhat aware within the continent it looks like South Africa is most badly hit. And so South Africa really has a serious issue with the virus. Now, some of that might be due to the fact that South Africa has better data, and a lot of African countries are not particularly good or capable to produce reliable statistics. And you can imagine this pandemic coming on top of many other things. It taxes governance services and statistical services a lot. Pierre Englebert: So it doesn't look like it's... They just passed a million case recently, which for a continent of 1.3 billion people is not at all at the level of other regions. Some people are saying because Africa is very youthful, the majority in most Sub-Saharan African countries, the majority of people are under the age of 15, that they might be less prone to it or less symptomatic. And so it might have fewer effects. It's plausible. I don't know. I also imagine that a lot of people do not have access to healthcare. And so it's hard to tell. So if you're in a village and some traders come by and maybe spread the virus people get sick and die and you can ask people, "Hey, what happened to Bob?" Say, "Well, he got sick and died," and that's kind of the explanation and people don't say, "Oh, he caught this and he was hospitalized and then treated." Pierre Englebert: And so the level of the provision from [inaudible 00:17:40] and of course morbidity is fairly high in many low income countries. And they're exposed to other things. People die from malaria. There's still cholera recurrently in places like Congo. There's all sorts of infectious disease. And so life expectancy is less than it is here. So my guess is that relative to the existing health issues COVID is less of a additional tragedy, but at the same time people lack sufficient access to healthcare and states lack sufficient knowledge about the population for us to be able to estimate the true impact. It's a good representation of how things really work in Africa in general. It's at a different level of what we call capabilities in terms of public services. Yeah. Mark Wood: Pierre, how heavily does the legacy of colonialism weigh on Africa today after what, about over half century or since most of the countries gained independence? Pierre Englebert: That's a great question. I think it's overwhelming. It remains overwhelming and not necessarily in the way that people expect. [inaudible 00:19:04] where you look at former French colonies and the French just cannot help themselves. They always meddle in the politics of their former colonies, and the elites of these former colonies are very attached to their French connection and essentially live in a little parallel world of connection with French elites that they like to reinforce and give them some degree of legitimacy in their own world. Pierre Englebert: So that's one clear case where there's what you can refer to as neocolonialism [inaudible 00:19:37] and the exploitation of resources. In Niger, for example, the one big resource is uranium and it's under a French company and things like that. So you can see that. But there's something more fundamental that's true across the continent, is that Africa is contemporary states, all the countries of Africa, except for Ethiopia, which was not colonized. All of them are the outcome of colonization. There's no such thing as Congo. There's no such thing as Mali. There's no such thing as Senegal or [inaudible 00:20:05] before colonization. These are institutional creations of the colonizer, right? And when the colonizers left starting in the late '50s, mostly through the '60s, they left behind that institutional apparatus, right? Pierre Englebert: So the states became independent. But when you think about that, what became independent is not what existed before colonization. It's what colonization created. And so by and large, it's a transfer of power from European elites to African elites, but it's the same apparatus. It's the same state. And so to some extent, freedom, independence in Africa happened upon a blueprint of alienation, if you will, right, that you become free but only if you define yourself along the terms created imposed by the colonizer. And so you renounce yourself. You [inaudible 00:21:02] yourself at the same time, which means you push away any kind of political legitimacy that might come from something else than colonialism. You have to have gone through these institutions to be a legitimate ruler. If you are a traditional chief, if you're a religious chief, if you are somebody who derives legitimacy from any other source that becomes politically marginalized, right? Pierre Englebert: And I think we don't often appreciate enough how that structural inheritance continues to constrain the realm of the possible in Africa. The states have democratized. They've had some elections. They've decentralized. They've tried many things to kind of better embed the post-colonial states into [inaudible 00:21:43], but at the same time, it's never been done in a way that really generates the true social contract where people can come and say, "Let's talk about this state. Do we want this state? And do we want to break it down or want to merge it with others," or something like that. And so that state has really almost a DNA that's colonial, that's still a top down repressive, exploitative, extractive foundation. It's very hard for that state to become responsive to population, to become accountable, to become a transparent. Pierre Englebert: And so African states... And there's huge variation here. I'm simplifying. But I'm making an average argument. African states tend to be fairly dominating and fairly authoritarian even when they democratize and are not very good at absorbing the demands of their citizens. And I think that's a colonial legacy, the discourse about independence as hidden because independence did really question the legacy of colonialism. It just became an acquisition of sovereignty upon an existing authoritarian extractive background. Patty Vest: Pierre, can you- Pierre Englebert: That's a big theme in my politics 162 class. Patty Vest: When are you teaching that next? We may have to audit that. Pierre Englebert: Please, you're very welcome. Yeah. Patty Vest: Thank you. Pierre, kind of along those lines when you use a primer on the state of African states today where are some of the success stories and where are some areas that are still struggling? Pierre Englebert: That's a great question because I've been stressing also the difficulties of the continent, and one has to be careful not to fall into this Afro pessimistic view also about excessive aggregation of Africa as one place. But it's worth stressing that there are serious issues and that they exist across the continent. So if you look in terms of let's say political regimes, you have an increased number of democracies on the continent, although the majority of countries are either authoritarian or what we call semi authoritarian or semi democracies, countries that have elections where it's very hard to truly have alternation in power, right? Pierre Englebert: But the most successful ones would be, and I'm kind of going geographically here starting in West Africa, so you have Senegal, which has been a democracy for a long time and a fairly successful one with really change people in office, incumbents losing elections, things like that and conceding. The Gambia right next door just recently democratized but it's not clear how sustainable that is. Benin has been a decent democracy. Pierre Englebert: Nigeria has democratized very significantly compared to where it was in the 1990s when it was really a catastrophic dictatorship, but of course it's still struggling with a lot of issues. But certainly it's a place with a lot more freedom of expression, a lot more political initiative, entrepreneurship, dynamics, new development. It's a very vibrant society. And so even though we might have some issues still in terms of transparency, accountability, corruption is terrible, still it's a vibrant political system. And you've had also incumbents lose elections, and you have a lot of dynamic political movements, tremendous cultural effervescence in Nigeria. It's really a great nation in terms of cultural production. And that's an important part of democratic expression too. Pierre Englebert: Kenya has done fairly well. It has had some serious election problems, but by and large, it has made significant progress. South Africa remains a strong democracy. There's some smaller ones, Cape Verde, Sao Tome that we don't hear as much about. There's probably about I would say 10 to 15 countries among the 50 so on the continent that can be thought of as democracies. Stable is a big word because Mali was a stable democracy until there was a coup in 2012. But I think there's about a good dozen countries that are up there performing really well. And then you still have some catastrophes, place like Zimbabwe which even though when Mugabe passed there was some hope that it would change, but it has remained a very, very repressive state, really a state captured by a corrupt elite that helps itself off it and fails to redistribute. Pierre Englebert: And then Congo. Congo had fraudulent elections in 2018 and it's economic scam parading as a country really, and people really have struggled to try to get any kind of voice and representation. Chad, very authoritarian regime. There's still plenty of those. Sudan recently has made some significant progress after a lot of street protests and people power, and it's encouraging but the [inaudible 00:27:15] remains really in control of the transition. So we'll see how far that goes. South Sudan has been a catastrophe since it became independent in 2011 [inaudible 00:27:23] by civil war. Pierre Englebert: There's still a lot of conflict across the continent. If you look there's conflict in... Of course there's Boko Haram in Nigeria, which is very big, but also Northern Mali, Burkina, Niger, this conflict in Chad. There's still conflict in South Sudan. There's conflict in Eastern Congo. There's still a lot of areas. Ethiopia is currently facing tremendous ethnic violence. So a lot of countries still struggle with nation building and with being able to negotiate conflict away from violence, how to bring conflictual perspectives in communities in a society without it slipping into violence, having mechanisms of arbitration, they struggle with that. Pierre Englebert: And so when you have governments that lack resources and that have weak formal institution, that's one of the customs there is that then it becomes very hard to regulate the normal dimensions of life. Life is full of conflict. And it's part of the state's job to adjudicate this. And many African states are wanting in this respect. Yeah. Mark Wood: Pierre, you wrote an op ed for the New York Times once titled To Save Africa Reject Its Nations. I'm hearing some echoes of that in what you're saying, but tell us what you meant by that. Pierre Englebert: I did not write that title. They write the titles for you. That was a terrible title, terrible title. I wrote back to them saying, "What were you thinking?" I did not make any argument about saving anybody. And then they got the argument flawed because it said reject its nations. And my whole idea was reject it's states. And of course the state and the nation are two very different things. And so there's some sort of idealized view of the nation state, but it's a construct, right? Pierre Englebert: So my argument was that... And it kind of goes back to some of the theories, some of the things we've discussed that African elites benefit from the sovereignty of the states. And so when African states receive sovereignty, they really got sovereignty almost automatically by virtue of decolonizing. They didn't have to earn it by proving that they existed. The United Nations said, "Here you go. Upper Volta, you're a state even though you might not actually be able to enforce your own state if you were asked to," but as part of the decolonization process. And it made some sense, right? It was a protection thing to have these states develop. Pierre Englebert: But what was well intended led to a system whereby the elites were able to capture the state and did not feel any kind of pressure to be accountable to societies. All they had to do was kind of to create international game because their recognition, their existence came from the UN, from New York if you will, but not from the countryside in their own countries. And so what I suggested at the time, this is from an earlier work, a book that I did in 2009, then I suggested... It was more a mental exercise than a genuine policy recommendation, then I said what if we just remove sovereignty? What if we say, "You know what? We're not giving you sovereignty. You can earn it, or you can become effectively sovereign, but this whole idea of neo recognition with a magic wand from the UN we make you exist we can say overnight that it doesn't happen anymore." Pierre Englebert: And so then I imagine what would take place? A lot of people say, "Oh, but then there would be violence." But I said there is already violence. And you assume that Africans cannot take care of themselves. Whenever you say, if the Europeans or the West stop recognizing then it's going to be killing each other. They had structures before the colonizers came. They were able to develop governance. There were significant states, powerful states. You look at the state of Buganda, the Zulu. There they were empires, the Mali empire, the Wolof kingdoms. There were some very significant political formations across the continent. Pierre Englebert: And so the notion that somehow removing sovereignty would lead to chaos is questionable. I was criticized for that because a lot of people felt like it's kind of inimical to Africans. And I think it was misunderstood by some, not by everybody. But essentially what I said is that let's give Africans ownership of their politics. And if they want to let's say, "Okay. We remove sovereignty." If the Congolese say, "Congo really matters to us whether you recognize it or not and we're going to build it and we're going to keep it and then we're going to make it efficient," then you can come and recognize it, exposed if you will. If that's what they want then let them do that, right? But let's not dictate what the parameters of politics would have to be in a way that leads to elites being removed from their people. Pierre Englebert: So sovereignty was given to a state and not to a people was kind of my argument. No, it was a bit of a radical, and I don't believe that we can actually do this, right? I don't think that you can say over night like that. And then of course the Chinese or the Russians would come and say, "That's fine. We'll recognize you instead, right?" Mark Wood: Of course. Pierre Englebert: But it was a thought experiment. I was trying to say, "Okay. Let's try to understand the damage that it can do and then we can think of ways of diluting the state that can restore a degree of political ownership to the people." Patty Vest: What role is the US playing in Africa today either or both through governmental action or through NGOs? Pierre Englebert: Through NGOs the US is fairly active. It's probably one of the most active external country in Africa. And USAID, the agency for international development is also very active in Africa. And in fact, the pushback against AIDS... AIDS was a catastrophe in Africa in the '80s and '90s. And it's the United States, PEPFAR, that started by Bush that's carried out by USAID that really has made a tremendous difference in reducing the death toll and the infections from AIDS. So that's a very significant contribution that the US has done and continues to do to Africa. There are lots of church groups active in Africa for better or for worse. But there's a strong presence from the US. Pierre Englebert: In fact, I think that aside from European countries, the former colonizers, the US is probably still despite the Chinese push and all that, it's still the most present actor in Africa, not in the sense of a big contract. The Chinese build pretty much every road and every infrastructure. That's not what the US does. But the US has significant soft power and strong presence still on the continent. This current administration has eroded that to a certain extent because there's no strong interest in Africa. And then the fact that they're moving away from the focus on counter-terrorism has also reduced US participation to quite a few security efforts. Pierre Englebert: Now, that might not be a bad thing because often I think that the focus on military containment of some of these security problems prevents us from looking at the root cause of these things. So right now the US is really engaged in the continent pretty much as a byproduct of competition with China and the US goes around telling countries, "Don't do business with the Chinese. Do business with us and watch out if you're too nice to the Chinese." And so Africa, just like in the Cold War, is not considered for its sound state but pretty much as part of a different power game. And it's often the case. Pierre Englebert: And to some extent, I'm thinking that might be a chance for Africans to seize initiative for themselves and take the space that is freed up by the pullout of the US. For example, the US is removing some troop from West Africa and stuff like that. Well, that's not necessarily a bad thing in terms of building local capacity. But there's no doubt [inaudible 00:35:31] in terms of us presence. We have a strong historical presence that really boomed under Bush W. and it was maintained by Obama and that's kind of fizzling away now. Of course, we don't know in the US what the transitions will be like. It's not clear where it's heading. Yeah. Mark Wood: So you mentioned China in Africa. What role is China playing in Africa today? And what kind of influence does it have? Pierre Englebert: No, China plays a huge role, a huge economic role but doesn't have a lot of influence. The Chinese are not very good at developing what we call soft power, essentially winning the hearts and minds of people. So they build roads. I mean, I don't think there's a single road being built over the last 10 years that's not built by the Chinese. They build ports, railroads, infrastructure, hospitals, and then they mine, right? The typical Chinese deal is okay, they'll give you like $5 billion. They won't give it to you, but they will build that for you to the amount of worth five billion in terms of roads and infrastructure. In exchange for that, you will grant an access to some mine for the next 30 years and they'll be able to mine it and get the copper or whatever it is that they're mining out of there. Pierre Englebert: I don't know [inaudible 00:36:50] form of neocolonialism. I'm not convinced. I think the Chinese take a lot of risks, right, because they give the money up front and then they get some sort of 30 year commitment. But good luck enforcing these commitments down the road if there's a change of regime or... Property rights are not particularly strong in many African countries. So the Chinese are very present in materially, economically, and they're starting to build up a little bit of a security presence. They now have a base in Djibouti, first base in Africa, and they start participating more to UN missions. But otherwise they're not very popular, although you see them everywhere now. I mean, if you could take a flight like an European airlines flight, it's not uncommon that half the plane has people coming from China. You didn't see that 10, 15 years ago. And at first it was just the countries with mineral resources. And now it's pretty much every country. Pierre Englebert: But then at the same time, a lot of Africans resent the fact that they typically bring their own people to work on their project, and they don't hire a lot of locals. They resent the fact that the Chinese are willing to work with corrupt leaders. And so sometimes if the corrupt leaders are skimming part of the contract then they work with that so that you get roads that are badly built because 40% of the contract was taken away and people are frustrated about this. But that's what also makes the Chinese quite able to work in an African environment, is that they are not always too concerned about these dimensions. Pierre Englebert: And then there's stories across Africa of racism in China against Africans, which does not predisposed Africans necessarily well towards the Chinese. And so even though the US is struggling in many ways, the US remains a cultural beacon, a place that appeals much more to people in Africa and elsewhere than the Chinese model. Although for African governments, the Chinese have been a very good partner to have. Patty Vest: I think you told us a little bit about your current research, Pierre, but in particular, can you tell us a little bit more once it's safer to fly, once you resume your travels, do you have plans to go back and if so where? Pierre Englebert: Yeah. So right now, my trip that was going to be to Niger last month is scheduled for December. Since we're going to be done by Thanksgiving now December is open. Of course, this is all tentative, right? But right now we're scheduling for December. I'm arranging everything for then. And then if it has to be pushed back again it will be pushed back again. But that will be the next trip. I would go right after Thanksgiving and then I would come back a little bit before Christmas then I would be able to do some work. Now, the problem is that there are presidential elections scheduled for December, which is just kind of a... It's interesting, of course. But that's what I'm studying, right? So it can be very disruptive when you're in a country during an electoral period and you're trying to interview people and everybody's busy with the election. Pierre Englebert: So I'm interested in being there at the time of the election because any political scientists find that interesting, but this is the only time I have. I need to move on with this project. So I'm going anyway. But at least a lot of people will be in town in the country. A lot of people who are good to talk to will be coming back for that. So that's my hope, but we'll see. It doesn't look like it will be necessarily that easy to travel by then. I'll go to Congo pretty much whenever I can. I don't know when, whenever they reopen. I'm serving on a few PhD committees that have defenses coming up and then I want to go for that. And of course I have colleagues. And then we have a book coming out in October, November, and we were planning on doing some sort of dissemination event in, Lubumbashi. And so that will happen when it can. Pierre Englebert: The good thing about being online is that you don't have to be at home when you teach, right? So on the one hand, we're in lockdown. On the other hand, we are not tethered to any physical location as long as we can see if [inaudible 00:40:53]. So who knows? I might do the spring semester from Lubumbashi and see... My wife would be very happy about that. Patty Vest: From Africa. Mark Wood: Yeah. So closer to home, can you tell us a little bit about the African Politics Lab that you're part of? Pierre Englebert: Yeah. That was a great thing that President Oxtoby set up. So over the years, I went to different presidents we had and said, "We really should have something about Africa." We are an elite university and there's more than a billion Africans and there's 49 countries and we don't have anything. And I was recruited to teach statistics. It happened that I did Africa, but I was not hired for that and nobody was doing Africa before. And they were like, "Yeah, sure. If you want to do that, that's fine." And when I go on sabbatical they replace statistics. They never replace Africa. So I said, "Listen, it's kind of a bit of a shame. And there's a lot of interest from students." I always get like 25, 30 students in my African politics class [inaudible 00:42:00] that I do it. And then we have an increased number of study abroad programs in Africa. Pierre Englebert: So I suggest on a few occasions that we might want to have more of an institutional existence about Africa or something of some programmatic that they mentioned. And so David Oxtoby then was sensitive to that and he agreed to fund this Africa initiative from which the African Politics Lab came. So what I did essentially I said, "Okay. We don't want to do a center or anything, that's something that's too heavy a footprint." And so I called it the African Politics Lab. And it's pretty much me and then a bunch of students. And then we organize lectures and events and some programming and then they participate in the research, right? Pierre Englebert: So there's a programming and a research component. And every year I hire a couple of students in that capacity. And then they work with me. Often when we were live, then they were helping with inviting guests and programming things. We usually had five or six guests a year. And then they work with me on my research. And many of them have become coauthors of articles. And so essentially it's a little bit of an institutional foundation from where I can do my work in ways that has multiplier effects in terms of teaching, in terms of education, in terms of programming on campus and things like that. Pierre Englebert: An important element was that also the David Oxtoby had agreed to fund visiting scholars from Africa. And so we were able to host African scholars. We had one from Ghana. We had one from The Gambia. We had a couple and came and spent a semester in [inaudible 00:43:44] class and lived on campus and were able to be members of the community. And it was, I think, very impactful for them. There were junior scholars from Africa and also for the students. Now, the funding for that has ended. So that component, I don't know if we'll be able to resume or not. I've tried a few other areas and thanks to the people in Martina Edward's office, we've been looking at some other grants to continue this. Things are a little bit on hold, but we are hoping to be able to resume some similar thing. Pierre Englebert: But [inaudible 00:44:16] the African Politics Lab continues there's still some resources there. And then I still have some students working with me, and I'm hoping that we'll be able to make it a lively part of the campus community again once we're all together again. Patty Vest: Pierre, can you tell us a little bit about the international relations program? Pierre Englebert: Yeah. It's a great program. It's one of the things I love the most about teaching at Pomona, the IR program. It's run jointly by economics, politics, history and increasingly also anthro and [inaudible 00:44:56]. It's really beautiful multidisciplinary program where students get training and background in language, in economics, in politics in some regions. And think it embodies the liberal arts model in terms of helping them look through different bodies of knowledge to make sense of things and to develop an understanding of this complex globalized world. And the profile of students who get into IR is always so endearing. I think they're very altruistic. They're curious, they're open minded. They make me happy to teach at Pomona. And it's true not just of the IR students, but they are really a fantastic bunch. Pierre Englebert: And I came to Pomona not thinking that I cared about teaching. My love is research and at heart I'm a researcher. And it was the best job offer. I only got two. And of the two it was the best one. So I'm like, "I'll take it," but I did not necessarily intend to stay and I couldn't care less at the time about the whole liberal arts things. So yeah, whatever. I'd say what I had to say in my interview. But then you know what? It grew on me. Then I came here and I realized, my goodness, I love teaching. And the students don't always realize how much they bring to us. And it's a little bit like parenting but not the emotional involvement of parenting. I have five kids too, so I can compare. Pierre Englebert: But this mentoring of young people as they grow intellectually, as they gain the skills to make sense of things, and as they project themselves in the future in ways that want to transform the world is so wonderful and empowering for us, and it's such a gift to be able to do that. Ad I don't thing the students realize how blessed we are to be with them. So I came to Pomona not expecting that and I fell in love with it and the IR program has been really the core building block in that love story for me with teaching. Mark Wood: So on that note we're going to have to wrap this up. We've been talking about African politics with Professor Pierre Englebert. Thank, Pierre. Patty Vest: Pierre, where can they- Pierre Englebert: My pleasure. Thank you so much for [crosstalk 00:47:21]. Patty Vest: ... find your music? Pierre Englebert: So I'm on Spotify. So the name of my band is called Not A Moment Too Soon because I'm no Spring chicken. But yeah. And- Patty Vest: I love it. Pierre Englebert: Yeah. So if you look that up with some SoundCloud, with some Spotify and it's on whatever, iTunes. And I released a nine song album back in June and I'm working on a second one that I should have... It's been great to be kind of stuck here. I'm doing more music than I would. Once the semester starts it will slow down. But I'm hoping that before Christmas I'll have a second one. Well, it's not quite professional, so please be forgiving. Patty Vest: Well, for all our listeners, go check it out. Mark Wood: Yeah. Pierre Englebert: All right. Thank you. Patty Vest: Thank you, Pierre. And for all- Pierre Englebert: My pleasure. Take care. Patty Vest: And to all who've stuck with us this far, thanks for listening to Sagecast, the podcast at Pomona College. Stay safe and until next time.