Daniel N. Posner is Total Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and coauthor of Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action (2009).
Natural-resource wealth has been at the root of Angola's corruption and authoritarianism. By giving leverage to those pushing for reform, however, it has also become a key factor in teh…
African politics is often characterized as a realm of “informality,” but formal rules and institutions actually loom large, especially with regard to overweening executive power and the reforms that may…
South Africa’s government sought to heed expert advice with its covid lockdown, yet shortcomings in state capacity fatally undermined both the virus response and efforts to address its devastating economic…