Welcome!

I am a Reader (Associate Professor) at the Department of Government, University of Essex, and a fellow at the Michael Nicholson Centre for Conflict and Cooperation.  I am also a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Department of Methodology, London School of Economics. I am Co-Director of the Africa Special Interest Group (ASIG), the hub for interdisciplinary research on Africa at the University of Essex, as well as Director of Impact at my department. I received my PhD from the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Konstanz. I also hold an M.A. from SAIS, Johns Hopkins University.

On this website, you can find information on my research and teaching. 

My main research interest lies in comparative politics, governance, the political economy of development, and conflict, with a regional focus on Africa and indigenous North America. I employ a variety of approaches, combining applied qualitative and mixed methods, surveys, experiments, case studies, and fieldwork. With colleagues, I run the Multilingualism, Conflict and Conflict Resolution in Africa project (MCCRA), also funded by an ESRC Large Research Grant (2023-2027). My project on "Exploring the Re-Analysis and Recycling of Qualitative Data with Machine Learning" (2026-2028) with Chris Arnold, re-analysing secondary qualitative data, e.g. on resilience in Africa, is funded by the ESRC. My research has been published in Comparative Political Studies, Governance, International Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Peace Research, Research & Politics, the Journal of Mixed Methods Research, and others.

Since 2024, I am on the research committee of the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA), one of the British Academy's BIRI. Since 2025, I also serve on the Economic and Social Research Council's Assessor College, and on the Editorial Board of the British Journal of Political Science.

In recent years, my research has been generously supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the British Academy, the ESRC Global Challenges Research Fund, the Robert Bosch Foundation, the German Foundation for Peace Research (DSF), the Gerda Henkel Foundation, and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

With Mwita Chacha and others, I co-founded the International Politics in Africa research network (IPIA), a group of scholars and practitioners engaged in the empirical study and understanding of how African societies, citizens, governments, supranational institutions, and non-governmental organisations experience international politics. If you are interested in joining the network, please be in touch.  Hannah Gibson and I also founded the Age and Power in Africa (AaPiA) group. 

You can find me on Bluesky and LinkedIn.

Contact

Department of Government

University of Essex

Room 5.302

Wivenhoe Park

Colchester CO4 3SQ, United Kingdom

+44 (0)1206 87-2745

fkern@essex.ac.uk