Doctoral Project (SOAS)

Explaining the Evolution of Opposition Mobilisation in Zambia, 1991 - 2021

My PhD project uses biographical research and political psychology frameworks to understand the influence of elite Zambian politicians on the evolution of party politics in the country, with the hope of drawing out patterns and dynamics that are useful for explaining broader comparative politics phenomena. I am studying long-running political parties and their current leaders through documentary analysis, key informant interviews and in-depth conversations with party elites, as detailed in my dissertation abstract:

 Zambian opposition movements have modified their voter linkage strategies and party platforms over the country’s three decades of multiparty democracy: major parties have implemented ethnopopulist platforms and tailored previously generalized urban appeals to target specific subsets of the voters in major cities. Why has Zambian political mobilization evolved in this direction? In the context of a young, authoritarian, lower-middle income African democracy, opposition party strategy can be understood as predominantly directed by an elite political class responding to three driving forces: the contingency of voter demographics shifting with socioeconomic trends; changes in electoral rules and potential avenues of ruling party repression; and strategic competition with other political parties. This study engages these hypotheses and explains the evolution of opposition strategy in Zambia through prospect theoretic examination of key decision points in the evolution of major opposition parties and process tracing of critical junctures in the country’s recent political history. The study draws on documentary analysis of party publications, electoral rules, government pronouncements and news media; in-depth interviews with party strategists, electoral officials and monitors; biographical profiles of senior opposition leaders, and real-time observations of mobilization approaches in the run-up to the 2021 general election.

Conferences

I have had the privilege to present my work in progress at several academic conferences and workshops over the course of my project preparation and fieldwork, and have benefited greatly from feedback provided at:

• The SOAS Politics Doctoral Conference (August 2020) - Political parties panel

• The Political Studies Association Early Career Network (PSA ECN 2020) - Populisms panel

• The Political Parties in Africa Network (PPA 2021) - Electoral Mobilisation panel

Masters Thesis (LSE)

Regionalisation and Export Upgrading: Trends and Policy in Africa

My MSc research project focused on the development implications of alternate global trade partnerships for African economies. I conducted a mixed-methods study of the effects of geographic distribution of trade partners and regional integration policies on African export upgrading between 1995 and 2015. I tested the effects of changes in export destinations and concentration of regional industry over time on the composition of African exports, and found significant positive effects of intra-African trade, with milder diversification gains from South-South trade, and a negative (concentrating) effect of trade with industrialised economies in Europe and North America. Results also suggest that African regional industrial centres are associated with more concentrated export baskets among their neighbours. Qualitative analysis of regional economic agreements reveals an emphasis on increasing intra-union but not intra-African trade, and few specific measures for creating regional industries or encouraging balanced upgrading across member countries. My thesis highlights the necessity of regional industrial enterprises for scaling up African manufacturing, and discusses the inadequacy of existing regional equity measures to counteract potential backwash effects of emerging industrial centres, citing Elkanian customs-drawback unions as a possible improvement. The thesis was awarded a distinction in the field of African Development.