I am a Lecturer in Politics and Development. My research relates to the areas of authoritarian dominance, distributive politics, labour informality, labour organising, transport, and urban politics with a particular focus on East Africa.

Before joining Manchester, I worked as an Assistant Professor in Politics at the University of Nottingham and as a Junior Research Fellow at New College, University of Oxford. I also completed my DPhil in Politics at Oxford.

Contact: [email protected]

My research focuses on the political economy of authoritarian dominance.

Drawing on my doctoral work, I published Wealth, Power, and Authoritarian Institutions: Comparing Dominant Parties and Parliaments in Tanzania and Uganda (OUP, 2024). The book shows how different trajectories of state-led capitalist development generate contrasting patterns of wealth accumulation and elite contestation across regimes. These differences, in turn, shape the strength of authoritarian parties and legislatures and their influence on accountability and distributive outcomes.

Building on this foundation, my postdoctoral research pursues a more multi-scalar analysis of authoritarian dominance, encompassing both national and city levels. Recent projects include a focus on labour organizing among transport workers—moto-taxi, bus, and casual lorry drivers—in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) as well as the efforts of state and private sector actors to adapt new strategies of regulation and political control.

Across these projects, I remain interested in struggles over resources and representation, whether through elite contestation and executive–legislative tensions or everyday forms of state–society negotiation and interest-group organising.

I am currently accepting PhD applicants and would be interested in supervising projects on topics including the political economy of authoritarian governance and political reform, state-business relations, urban politics and development, urban labour informality, and labour organizing in cities of the Global South, especially in Africa. To assess fit more fully, please see my publications and research projects. If you would like to discuss an application, please email me with a research proposal outlining your main questions, literature review, methodology, and study area.

I currently convene two undergraduate courses:

• The State and the Political Economy of Development
• The Undergraduate Dissertation

My office hours are 14:00-16:00 on Thursdays, and you can book via this link (here). If you are unable to make these times, then please email me for an alternative slot.