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. 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. I am currently on research leave.

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

My main research interest lies in 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, case studies, and fieldwork. My most recent work focuses on domestic sources of foreign policy formulation in Africa, land rights, as well as research transparency in qualitative methods. With colleagues, I run the Multilingualism, Conflict and Conflict Resolution in Africa project (MCCRA), funded by an ESRC Large Research Grant (2023-2027). 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. Since 2024, I am on the research committee of the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA), one of the British Academy's BIRI.

In recent years, my research has been generously supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), 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).

You can find me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/floriangkern.bsky.social

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