*Originally published in 2022 and preserved as part of our archive project. E-International Relations is free to read. We rely on reader support to make this possible.

Pierre Englebert is the H. Russell Smith Professor of International Relations at Pomona College and a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. Prior to that, he worked at the World Bank in West Africa for four years. His research focuses on weak states, democratization and state formation in Africa, postcolonial state formation, and secessionism. He has published five books and more than twenty articles on African politics and development. His book State Legitimacy and Development in Africa (2000) was a Choice Outstanding Book and has been cited more than 700 times. Africa: Unity, Sovereignty and Sorrow (2009) earned the Best Book Award from the African Politics Conference Group in 2010. 

Where do you see the most exciting research/debates happening in your field?

I concentrate on African studies. The topics I found interesting to work on include the nature of the state, the way that the state is changing, challenges in exiting African States, such as Congo and Nigeria, the rise of new states, and Secessionism. When thinking about the fifty four states in Africa, you can also problematize them, which a lot of scholarship does. For example, some research could examine the discrepancies between Northern and Southern Nigeria, investigating why certain regions develop different sets of rules in violation of the constitution. Thus, if you look at Nigeria, you may find not one Nigeria but a multitude of actors that produce statehood. This is the type of research I find exciting. Meanwhile, a lot of African scholars produce works from grassroots, or empirical perspectives. Their focus differs from scholars like me, but is also interesting. 

How has the way you understand the world changed over time and what (or who) prompted the most significant shifts in your thinking?

There is a notion of development, the idea that countries are situated on a trajectory and they change from poor to advanced. In other words, they industrialize, democratize, or modernize. I used to teach a class called the political economy of development. Then, I stopped believing in development, the notion that there is a predetermined trajectory. I think this concept tends to encourage people to equate modernization with westernization. Moving away from this idea, I understand development not as a fact, a long-term trend, but as an ideology. 

In your book, Africa: Unity, Sovereignty and Sorrow, you explore the question of why Africans refrain themselves from “exiting” the state. How does answering this question enrich one’s understanding of........

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