Research 

Research Statement

As a scholar specializing in the political economy of development, state-building, and conflict, with a regional emphasis on Northeast Africa and the Red Sea, I pursue a three-track research agenda examining institutional politics, state-building, state rivalry, and comparative political economy. My work bridges comparative politics and international relations to address policy-relevant issues in development and conflict. To date, my research has resulted in eight peer-reviewed publications, including articles in Journal of Institutional Economics, Nations and Nationalism, and Third World Quarterly, and a co-edited volume, Nile Basin Politics (Edward Elgar). I am currently completing two book manuscripts, Violence, Elites, and Institutions: State-building and Political Development in Africa (under contract with SUNY Press) and Economic Freedom and Self-Governance in Africa: Contracting the State (under contract with Routledge).

Track 1: State-Building, Development, and Contractualism

My primary research track examines institutional transformations in developing countries, with a focus on state-building and economic freedom. I use classical contractarian theories to analyze how post-colonial states construct political orders and manage development challenges in a globalized world. In The Review of Austrian Economics, I introduced a contractualist framework, reinterpreting classical theories to address contemporary political and economic transactions in African contexts. This framework links individual agency and institutional change, illuminating how state-building processes can emerge from bottom-up interactions rather than centralized command.

The empirical portion of this project involves field research in Rwanda, where I investigate the effects of economic freedom policies and emerging development technologies, such as ICT and blockchain, on post-colonial governance. Supported by $20,000 in grants from the Center for Governance and Markets and the Institute for Humane Studies, I completed an initial field visit to Kigali last May and will return next summer. This research examines how micro-level decisions by entrepreneurs intersect with broader institutional constraints, producing insights into state-society relations under liberalizing reforms. These findings will culminate in a book, Economic Freedom and Self-Governance in Africa: Contracting the State (under contract with Routledge), which offers a policy-relevant framework for aligning liberal ideals of self-governance with the structural realities of post-colonial development.

Track 2: State-building, Statecraft, and State Rivalry

My second research track investigates how external constraints, such as globalization, resources, and regional rivalries shape foreign policy, statecraft, and institutional outcomes in African states. Using case studies of conflicts over the Nile River and the Red Sea, I analyze how domestic ideational factors mediate the effects of regional anarchy and resource competition. This research integrates comparative and international perspectives to illustrate how global political economy and state-level political orders interact.

I co-edited Nile Basin Politics (Edward Elgar), a volume that dissects how nationalist and domestic political forces drive water conflicts in the Nile Basin. Additionally, I have published findings on maritime rivalries and regional security competition in Third World Quarterly and African Security, demonstrating how international rivalries and resource politics influence domestic political orders. This work highlights how African states navigate external pressures to produce distinct policy responses, often shaped by their internal institutional frameworks and elite politics.

Track 3: Elite Politics, Rents, and Political Order Formation

The third track of my research analyzes how governing elites use rents to manage internal rivals and shape political orders, employing a new institutionalist approach with elite interviews and secondary data. My work explores how patronage, institutional incentives, and elite cohesion influence state-building outcomes, with case studies in Ethiopia, Rwanda, and South Sudan.

In my book Violence, Elites, and Institutions: State-building and Political Development in Africa (under contract with SUNY Press), I argue that elite contestation over rents—mediated by institutional norms—drives political order formation. Using extensive elite interviews, I show that Rwanda’s transition from a rent-based order to a system of standardized elite privileges and specialization has facilitated political maturity and developmental success. By contrast, in Ethiopia and South Sudan, ethnicized rent distribution and weak elite cohesion have contributed to state fragility and development failures.

Building on this work, I have extended my analysis to institutional discourses and their role in elite politics. In an article published in Society, I identify DEI as a broad ideological institutional norm shaping policymaking irrespective of organizational culture. In an article published in Nations and Nationalism, I show how discursive markers, when institutionalized, produce social affects that can escalate into mass violence when institutional constraints weaken. This research highlights how elite-driven institutional narratives shape political outcomes, reinforcing or undermining state cohesion.

Contributions and Future Research Directions

My research agenda integrates the study of state-building, globalization, and elite politics, contributing to debates on institutional theory, liberalist, and the political economy of development. By emphasizing individual agency, institutional norms, and elite bargaining, my work provides a conceptual bridge between comparative politics, political economy, and international relations. In addition to completing my current book projects, I am developing a new research initiative on how emerging technologies, such as digital currencies and AI-driven governance tools, affect institutional norms and state-building processes in developing regions. I am also interested in how developing countries have historically shifted and adapted their foreign policy orientations in response to systemic or structural transformations in the global order.