Faculty bios:
Dan Banik is a Professor of Political Science and Director of the Oslo SDG Initiative at the University of Oslo’s Centre for Development and Environment. He is affiliated with Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, China Agricultural University in Beijing and Chancellor College in Malawi. Professor Banik's books include Political Transition, Poverty and Inclusive Development in Malawi: The Democratic Dividend (Routledge 2016), The Legal Empowerment Agenda: Poverty, Labour and the Informal Economy in Africa (Ashgate 2011), Poverty and Elusive Development (Scandinavian University Press 2010) and Starvation and India’s Democracy (Routledge 2009). He has co-founded a Masters program on public administration and management at the University of Malawi for Malawian civil servants. Twitter: @danbanik
Benedicte Bull is a Professor of Political Science and Director of the Norwegian Network of Latin America Studies (NorLARNet) at the University of Oslo’s Center for Development and the Environment. Her current research projects focus on the role of political and economic elites and public-private relations in development and environmental governance in Latin America. She is also increasingly interested in the illicit economy in Latin America and its implications for state authority and state-society relations. Professor Bull is an active media commentator and writes a popular blog. Twitter: @benedictebull
Michael Chasukwa holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Leeds and is currently the head of the Department of Political and Administrative Studies. His teaching, supervision and research interests include local governance, decentralization, local government, politics of development, political economy, African politics, and agriculture policies in the context of development. Dr. Chasukwa has participated in several regional research initiatives that focus on “Water, Gender and Governance” (University of Malawi, University of Nairobi, University of Zimbabwe, University of Oslo, and International Water Management Institute-Republic of South Africa); “AidEffect: What Works? When, Why and For Whom?” (University of Malawi, University of Zambia, University of Oslo, China Agriculture University); and “Transnational Commercial Land Deals in Africa” (University of Malawi, University of Ghana, University of Nairobi and University of Western Cape). He has undertaken numerous commissioned studies for local and international organizations including Food and Agriculture Organisation, Catholic Commission of Justice and Peace, Concern Universal, Danish Church Aid, Plan International, ActionAid, World Bank and the Government of Malawi.
Blessings Chinsinga holds a BA in Public Administration from Chancellor College at the University of Malawi, an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge, UK, and a Ph.D. in Development Studies from the University of Mainz, Germany. He is a Professor based at the Department of Political and Administrative Studies (PAS) and Director of the Centre of Social Research (CSR), University of Malawi. Prof. Chinsinga teaches Institutions and Development, Public Policy Analysis, Development Theory and Political Economy of Development. His main research interests include political economy of development, public policy analysis, institutions and development, poverty reduction and rural livelihoods, and local level politics. Twitter: @kchinsinga
Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. He is also a professor by courtesy of political science and sociology. For more than six years, he directed FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and he continues to lead its programs on Arab Reform and Democracy and Democracy in Taiwan. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as Senior Consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. Prof. Diamond's latest book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the U.S. and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad. He is now writing a textbook and preparing a massive open online course (MOOC) on democratic development. Diamond’s other books include In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has also edited or coedited more than forty books on democratic development around the world. He directed the Stanford Program on Democracy in Taiwan for more than ten years and has been a regular visitor to Taiwan since 1995. Twitter: @LarryDiamond
Li Xiaoyun is a distinguished Professor and Founding Dean of the College of Humanities and Development Studies, and Dean of School of Public and Policy Studies, Director of Research Centre for International Development at China Agricultural University, Beijing. Dr. Li's work covers development interventions, gender and development, poverty reduction, climate change, international development aid, China’s foreign aid, China and Africa and Africa’s agricultural development. He received a PhD. in agricultural sciences from Beijing Agricultural University (now China Agricultural University) in 1987 and worked as a Policy Analyst in the Central Party Committee’s Research Department for Rural Development. In 1989, he became the Director of the International Rural Development Center at Beijing Agricultural University. From 1990, he began studying development studies in Germany and the Netherlands whole continuing his doctoral research in development sociology in the Netherlands. Dr. Li has been a senior expert for the World Bank, ADB, UN, and other bilateral agencies and international NGOs working in China, Africa, Asia and Latin America. He has received numerous awards for his work on poverty alleviation and development in China.
Boniface Dulani is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Political and Administrative Studies at Chancellor College, University of Malawi. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (with Honors) Degree in Political Science from the University of York in the United Kingdom (1999); a Master of Philosophy Degree in Development Studies from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK (2002) and a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Political Science from Michigan State University in the United States (2011). His PhD research, which was supervised by the renowned Africanist Political Science Professor, Michael Bratton, sought to answer the question of why some African presidents succeed in removing presidential term limits while others fail. Dr. Dulani is actively involved in survey research and is also a senior member of the Afrobarometer, a pan- Africanist research network that undertakes a series of public opinion surveys on governance, democracy, markets, livelihoods and other related topics in over 35 African countries. He has published widely, singularly and in collaboration with colleagues in Malawi and outside the country. He is also a regular contributor to local and international media, including the Lamp Magazine, the Washington Post and Al-Jazeera America. Twitter: @bonidulani
Øyvind Eggen is a former policy director at the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). He has worked for numerous civil society organizations and is currently the director of the Rainforest Foundation Norway. He holds a Ph.D. in social anthropology from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Twitter: @oyveggen
Alice Evans is a Lecturer at King's College London, a Faculty Associate at Harvard CID, with previous appointments at Cambridge and the London School of Economics. Dr. Evans studies social norms; how they change; & globalization. She has published extensively on: How colonialism reinforced gender inequalities; What drives support for gender equality; The decline of the male breadwinner and persistence of the female carer; Cities as catalysts of social change; Why inequality fell in Latin America; How TPP enabled pro-worker reforms in Vietnam; Why patriarchal trade unions are weaker unions. Her forthcoming book is entitled "THE GREAT GENDER DIVERGENCE". It explains how societies come to support gender equality, and why rates of change vary across the world. Twitter: @_Alice_Evans
Francis Fukuyama is Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Mosbacher Director of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy. He is also professor (by courtesy) of Political Science. Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His most recent book, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, was published in Sept. 2018. Francis Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation, and of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University. He served as a member of the President's Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004.
Dr. Fukuyama is chairman of the editorial board of The American Interest, which he helped to found in 2005. He holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), Kansai University (Japan), and Aarhus University (Denmark), and the Pardee RAND Graduate School. He is a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and at the Center for Global Development. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the Pardee Rand Graduate School and the Volcker Alliance. He is a member of the American Political Science Association and the Council on Foreign Relations. Twitter: @FukuyamaFrancis
Happy Kayuni is a professor at the University of Malawi’s Political and Administrative Studies (PAS) Department. He holds a Ph.D. (Political Science) from the University of the Western Cape. He has co-edited books and authored (or co-authored) over forty peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters as well as over a hundred research/consultancy reports and conference papers. Prof. Kayuni's publications are in the following areas: public sector governance, ethnicity, gender in politics, public sector reform and management, public policy and development. Prof. Kayuni has facilitated numerous team building programs for various local governments and ministries in Malawi. He has also been involved in training Malawian members of parliament under the Democracy Consolidation Programme. He is also a trained SADC-PF Elections Observer. Twitter: @happykayuni
Erik G. Jensen is a professor of the practice of law at Stanford Law School, director of the law school’s Rule of Law Program, and an affiliated faculty member at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University (FSI). A lawyer trained in Britain and the United States, he has, for the last 25 years, taught, practiced and written about the field of law and development in 30 countries. As co-director of the Rule of Law Program, Jensen serves as faculty advisor to student-driven projects in Afghanistan, Bhutan, Timor-Leste, and Iraq that, with strong local partnerships, develop legal tools in these developing democracies.
Stephen D. Krasner is the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford University. He is also a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a fellow of the Hoover Institution. Dr. Krasner received a BA in history from Cornell University, an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard. From February 2005 to April 2007 he served as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department. While at the State Department, Dr. Krasner was a driving force behind foreign assistance reform designed to more effectively target American foreign aid. He was also involved in activities related to the promotion of good governance and democratic institutions around the world. Before coming to Stanford in 1981, Dr. Krasner taught at Harvard University and UCLA. At Stanford, he was chair of the political science department from 1984 to 1991, and he served as the editor of International Organization from 1986 to 1992.
He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). In 2002 he served as director for governance and development at the National Security Council. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His major publications include Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investment and American Foreign Policy (1978), Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism (1985), and Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (1999). Publications he has edited include International Regimes (1983), Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics (co-editor, 1999), Problematic Sovereignty: Contested Rules and Political Possibilities (2001), and Power, the State, and Sovereignty: Essays on International Relations (2009).
Desmond McNeill is Director of the Research School at the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM), University of Oslo, Norway. In recent years his interest has been primarily in questions of governance - especially at global level, but also in tracing connections between local, national and global levels - in the field of health and the environment. His books include Global Poverty, Ethics and Human Rights: The Role of Multilateral Organizations (with Asunción Lera St. Clair), Routledge, 2012; Development Issues in Global Governance: Market Multilateralism and Public-Private Partnerships (with B. Bull), Routledge, 2009; Global Institutions and Development: Framing the World? (ed. with M.Bøås), Routledge, 2007.
Ole Petter Ottersen is currently the president of Karolinska Institutet. He was the University of Oslo’s elected rector [equivalent to a university chancellor] for the period of 2013-2017. From 2006 to 2009, Dr. Ottersen was Chief Editor of Neuroscience, the journal of the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO). He chaired the Lancet-University of Oslo Commission on Global Governance for Health whose report was launched on February 11, 2014. Dr. Ottersen was appointed a professor of medicine at the University of Oslo in 1992. He has been head of the Department of Anatomy (1997-1999), Research Dean of the Faculty of Medicine (2000- 2002), head of one of Norway's Centres of Excellence (Centre for Molecular Biology and Neuroscience, 2002-2009) and since 2009 UiO’s rector. Twitter: @ottersenolep
Antoine de Bengy Puyvallée is a Ph.D. candidate in International Politics at the Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo. He is interested in global health governance and global cooperation to manage dangerous disease outbreaks such as Ebola. His PhD project — "The Politics of epidemic response: New actors in global health security" — unpacks how the public sector, military forces, international organizations, commercial companies and NGOs work together to respond to dangerous outbreaks through Emergency Medical Teams. He previously studied Norway’s response to the 2014-2015 Ebola crisis and was involved in research analyzing the role of civil society in global health and the Nordic development aid model (Nordic Branding project).
Sidsel Roalkvam is a Professor of Social Anthropology and Director of the Centre for Development and the Environment at the University of Oslo. Her academic interests have revolved around issues related to global health, and she has led several major research projects and networks at the University of Oslo. Before joining the University of Oslo in 2008, Prof. Roalkvam was an associate professor at VID Specialized University. Twitter: @sidselroalkvam
Margot Igland Skarpeteig is Policy Director at the Department for Education and Global Health at the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). She has previously served as Counsellor and Deputy Permanent Representative at the Norwegian Mission to the UN Organisations in Rome. She has over two decades of work experience in human rights-based development from academia, diplomacy, development agencies and human rights organizations. Ms. Skarpeteig is an expert on human rights, and the interrelatedness and interdependence of human rights, focusing in particular on the right to food, the right to education, women’s rights and human rights-based approaches to development. She has also specialized in international development cooperation, humanitarian response, accountability to affected populations, empowerment and food security. Initially trained as a geographer, Skarpeteig holds an M.Phil. in political geography based on fieldwork in India and has carried out research and reviews in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Nepal and India. She has published extensively within the fields of development, international cooperation, human rights and education. Since 2005, she has been a part-time lecturer in human rights and development at the University of Oslo, and she has previously worked as a researcher at Agder Research and the University of Bergen. Twitter: @margotska
Lixia Tang was born in Anhui province in China. Since 2003, she has been working at the College of Humanities and Development Studies of China Agricultural University, Beijing where she received her first Ph.D. degree in Development Studies. Her second Ph.D. degree is from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Dr. Tang is currently a professor of development studies at China Agriculture University, researching poverty analysis and livelihood development, international development aid and social public policy analysis. The field sites of her research cover more than 20 provinces in China and several developing countries, including Zambia, India, Thailand and Zimbabwe.
Ola Westengen is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Landscape and Society International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric) at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. He leads the research cluster "Climate Change and Agricultural Development" at his department. Before joining Noragric in 2015, Westengen was the Coordinator of Operations and Management of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. He conducts research on agrobiodiversity; conservation and use of genetic resources; seed supply systems; food security and adaptation to climate change; crop evolution and crop diversity as biocultural heritage. Dr. Westengen is part of the program committee for the master's program in International Environment Studies and the Ph.D. program in International Environment and Development Studies. Twitter: @olawestengen