Research
Research
My research outputs (listed below) range from the theoretical to the empirical, and from historical to contemporary topics. The vast bulk of primary research informing my published work stems from "elite interviews" with officials, executives and other representatives of government departments, multinational corporations, international organisations, research institutions, and the like. I've conducted field research, much of it supported by external grant funding, in a wide range of locations, including Southern Africa (Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Gaborone, Windhoek), the United States (Washington DC, Houston), Europe (London, Paris, Geneva) and the Middle East (Jerusalem).
I've presented my research at international conferences in a wide range of locations, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, the Czech Republic, Germany, Sweden. I've given invited lectures and talks at many universities and research institutes, including Arizona State University, Queen's University Belfast, University of Southampton, Dublin City University, Texas Christian University, University of Lincoln, City University London, University of East London, The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dublin), Nelson Mandela University, Stellenbosch University, the University of Cape Town, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Current working papers
'An "Exxon model"? How oil and gas companies can stick with molecules but also contribute to decarbonization'
'International Oil Companies and the Transatlantic Divide: Varieties of Engagement with the Energy Transition'
'The Future of an All-American Corporation: ExxonMobil in the Era of Net Zero'
'The geometry of the energy transition: global energy infrastructure, geopolitical risk, and international relations'
Books
The Resilience of Big Oil: Post-Colonial Politics, Petrocultures and the Energy Transition (manuscript currently in preparation).
Africa’s Development Impasse: Rethinking the Political Economy of Transformation (London and New York: Zed Books, 2010), 258 pp.
Journal articles
(with Timothy J. Ruback) ‘“Our oil would burn bright til morning:” Geopolitics, Resource Securitization, and Anglo-American Competition for Whale Oil, 1783-1818’, Energy Research & Social Science, Vol. 76 (2021), 102035.
‘The bubble that got away? Prospects for shale gas development in South Africa’, The Extractive Industries and Society, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2018), pp. 453-460.
‘Energy Producers in Sub-Saharan Africa: Beyond the Gatekeeper State?’, Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal, Vol. 3, No. 3 (2018), pp. 381-397.
‘Fossil-fuelled development and the legacy of post-development theory in twenty-first century Africa’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 12 (2017), pp. 2634-2649.
(with Kate J. Neville, Jennifer Baka, Shanti Gamper-Rabindran, Karen Bakker, Avner Vengosh, Alvin Lin, Jewellord Nem Singh and Erika Weinthal) ‘Debating unconventional energy: social, political and economic implications’, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Vol. 42 (2017), pp. 241-266.
‘Comparing British and American conservatisms through the prism of African development’, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics Vol. 55, No. 4 (2017), pp. 471-488.
‘Varieties of Resource Nationalism in Sub-Saharan Africa’s Energy and Minerals Markets’, The Extractive Industries and Society Vol. 2, No. 2 (2015), pp. 310-319.
‘Understanding corporate governance reform in South Africa: Anglo-American divergence, the King Reports and hybridization’, Business & Society, Vol. 50, No. 4 (2011), pp. 647-673.
‘Africa’s prospects and South Africa’s leadership potential in the emerging markets century’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 6 (2011), pp. 1165-1181.
‘Confronting the Settler Legacy: Indigenisation and Transformation in South Africa and Zimbabwe’, Political Geography, Vol. 29, No. 8 (2010), pp. 424-433.
‘The African National Congress and its critics: “predatory liberalism”, black empowerment and intra-alliance tensions in post-apartheid South Africa’, Democratization Vol.13, No.2 (2006), pp. 303-322.
‘Stand and deliver: private property and the politics of global dispossession’, Political Studies Vol.54, No.1 (2006), pp. 3-22.
‘Accumulation and growth to what end? Reassessing the modern faith in progress in the “age of development”’, Capitalism Nature Socialism Vol.16, No.4 (2005), pp. 57-75.
‘Orientalism and African development studies: the “reductive repetition” motif in theories of African underdevelopment’, Third World Quarterly Vol.26, No.6 (2005), pp. 971-986.
‘Economic Reforms and “Virtual Democracy” in South Africa and Zimbabwe: The Incompatibility of Liberalisation, Inclusion and Development', Journal of Contemporary African Studies Vol.21, No.3 (2003), pp. 383-406.
‘Divergent Paths of Development: The Modern World-System and Democratization in South Africa and Zambia’, Journal of World-Systems Research Vol.7, No.2 (2001), pp. 175-223.
Chapters in edited volumes
‘Energy and Political Science’, forthcoming in G. Macdonald and J. Stewart (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Energy Humanities (Routledge).
‘Resource Nationalism and Economic Indigenisation in Africa’, pp. 137-153 in A. Pickel, ed., Handbook of Economic Nationalism (Edward Elgar, 2022).
‘The Impact of the US Energy Revolution and Decarbonisation on Energy Markets in Africa’, pp. 133-148, in S. Scholvin, A. Black, J. Revilla Diez, and I. Turok (eds.), Value Chains in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges of Integration into the Global Economy (Springer, 2019).
‘Unconventional Energy in Africa: Impact of the US Shale Revolution and Prospects for African Exploration’, pp. 223-243, in M. Dorraj and K. Morgan (eds.), The Global Impact of Unconventional Energy Resources (New York: Lexington Books, 2019).
‘Emerging frontiers of energy exploration in post-boom Africa’, pp. 195-208, in S. Raszewski (ed.), The International Political Economy of Oil and Gas (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
‘American and British Strategies in the Competition for Energy Resources in Sub-Saharan Africa’, pp. 13-31, in S. Scholvin (ed.), A New Scramble for Africa: The Rush for Energy Resources in Sub-Saharan Africa (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015).
‘Conservatism’, pp. 47-70, in V. Geoghegan and R. Wilford (eds.), Political Ideologies: An Introduction, 4th ed. (London: Routledge, 2014).
‘Elusive Agency: Africa's Persistently Peripheral Role in International Relations’, pp. 143-157 in W. Brown and S. Harman (eds.), African Agency in International Politics (London: Routledge, 2013).
‘On the nature of Anglophone conservatism and its applicability to the analysis of postcolonial politics’, pp. 89-113, in D. Özsel (ed.), Reflections on Conservatism (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011).
‘The Resilience of Comprador Capitalism: “New” Economic Groups in Southern Africa’, pp. 274-296 in A. E. Fernández Jilberto and B. Hogenboom (eds.), Big Business and Economic Development: Conglomerates and Economic Groups in Developing Countries and Transition Economies Under Globalization (London: Routledge, 2007).
Other publications
‘Why the US oil majors may end up doing more for the green transition than their (slightly) more progressive European rivals’, The Conversation, 31 May 2024.
‘Big Oil and the transatlantic divide: Varieties of engagement with climate governance and the energy transition’, video lecture, Science Talks, Vol. 5 (2023).
‘Fossil fuel divestment will increase carbon emissions, not lower them – here’s why’, The Conversation, 25 November 2019.
‘South African energy shift will prove difficult’, Oxford Analytica Daily Brief, Oxford Analytica, 4 December 2018.
(with Sören Scholvin) ‘Klimawandel oder Wirtschaftskollaps? Die subsaharischen Ölexportländer stehen vor einem großen Dilemma’, iz3w No. 369 (2018), pp. 10-12.
‘Who cares about Africa? British and American conservatisms in African development’, LSE British Politics and Policy, 30 January 2018, and LSE at Africa, 4 February 2018.
‘Western divestment could reshape African energy space’, Oxford Analytica Daily Brief, Oxford Analytica, 24 July 2017.
‘The Trump Presidency: What we know and what we might not’, QPOL, 22 November 2016.
(with Ashwini Chhatre, Brian Dill, Maryann Bylander and Sudha Narayanan) ‘Editorial’, World Development Perspectives, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2016), pp. iv-v.
‘Global Impact of the US Shale Revolution: here to stay?’, QPOL, 2 September 2015.
(with Sören Scholvin and David Fig) ‘Mit Vollgas in die Sackgasse?’, iz3w No. 349 (2015), pp. 14-16.
(with Sören Scholvin and Ana Alves) ‘Wettlauf um Afrikas Ressourcen’, Afrika Wirtschaft, No. 2 (2015), pp. 26-31.
(with Sören Scholvin and Ana Alves) ‘Das Wettrennen um die Energieressourcen in Subsahara-Afrika’, GIGA Focus Afrika No. 1 (2015), pp. 1-8.
‘La reserva de África’, La geopolítica de la energía, Vanguardia Dossier 53, October/December (2014).
‘US fracking boom puts West African oil economies at risk’, The Conversation, 6 August 2014.
‘End of the Western Model’, Centre for Policy Studies, 30 November 2011.
‘Britain and America in the Emerging Markets Century’, Centre for Policy Studies, 28 October 2011.
‘Can the “developmental state” save southern Africa?’, Global Dialogue: An International Affairs Review Vol. 12, No. 1 (2007), pp. 6-10.
‘No flood from this trickle’, Global Dialogue: An International Affairs Review Vol.7, No.1 (2002), pp. 21-22.
Book reviews
Emma Ashford, Oil, the State, and War: The Foreign Policies of Petrostates (Georgetown University Press, 2022), H-Diplo, the Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum, Roundtable Review 16-5, October (2024), pp. 47.
Mahmood Mamdani, Neither Settler Nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities (Harvard University Press, 2020), Journal of Development Studies Vol. 58, No. 9 (2022), pp. 1895-1896.
Indra Overland (ed.), Public Brainpower: Civil Society and Natural Resource Management (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), The Extractive Industries and Society, Vol. 5, No. 3 (2018), pp. 415-416.
Vijay Prashad, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South (London: Verso, 2012), Times Higher Education, No. 2, 105 (2013), p. 53.
Chris Alden and Ward Anseeuw, Land Liberation and Compromise in Southern Africa (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 49, No. 1 (2011), pp. 167-8.
Jomo KS (ed.), The Pioneers of Development Economics: Great Economists on Development (London & New Delhi: Zed Books & Tulika Books, 2005) and Jomo KS and Erik S. Reinert (eds.), The Origins of Development Economics: How Schools of Economic Thought Have Addressed Development (New Delhi: Tulika Books/Sephis, 2006), Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 35, No. 118 (2008), pp. 686-688.
Jonathan Farley, Southern Africa (London: Routledge, 2007), International Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 5 (2008), pp. 1032-33.
Roger Pfister, Apartheid South Africa and African States: From Pariah to Middle Power, 1961-1994 (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2005), Journal of Modern African Studies Vol. 44, No. 2 (2006), pp. 340-341.
Guy Mhone and Omano Edigheji (eds.), Governance in the new South Africa: The challenges of globalisation (Lansdowne: University of Cape Town Press, 2003), African Affairs Vol.104, No.415 (2005), pp. 351-352.
Alfredo Saad-Filho (ed.), Anti-Capitalism: A Marxist Introduction (London: Pluto Press, 2003), Political Studies Review Vol.2, No.3 (2004), pp. 434-435.
J. L. Holzgrefe and Robert O. Keohane (eds.), Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), Journal of Moral Philosophy Vol.1, No.2 (2004), pp. 226-229.