Pierre Englebert

Professor Englebert has spent more than 30 years studying African politics and development, with a particular focus on Francophone West and Central Africa.

He travels to Africa two to three times a year in an effort to understand and address the challenges of postcolonial state formation and development.

His research has focused on the resilience of weak states, nationalism and separatism, development and foreign aid, fragile states, democratization and security.

Books

• With Mareike Schomerus and Lotje de Vries (eds.), Secessionism in African Politics: Aspirations Grievances Performance, Disenchantment (Palgrave McMillan, 2019)
• With K. Dunn, Inside African Politics (Lynne Rienner, 2nd edition, 2019
• Africa: Unity, Sovereignty and Sorrow (Lynne Rienner, 2009)
• State Legitimacy and Development in Africa (Lynne Rienner, 2000)
• Burkina Faso: Unsteady Statehood in West Africa (Westview; 1996)

Opinions and Report

• “The DRC’s Electoral Sideshow,” Journal of Democracy, July 2019, 30(3):124-138.
• “Congo’s 2018 Elections: An Analysis of Implausible Results,” African Arguments, January 10, 2019.
• “Avantages et dérapages d’un découpage,” Jeune Afrique, 3011, 23-29, September 2018:31.
• “A Sahelian Potemkin?  The Empirical and the Fictional in Malian State Reconstruction,” with Catriona Craven-Matthews (Pomona 2016), African Security, 11(1):1-30.
• “Congo Blues: Scoring Kabila’s Rule.” Atlantic Council, Issue Brief, May 2016.
• “The ‘Real’ Map of Africa:  Redrawing Colonial Borders,” Foreign Affairs, November 8, 2015.