Nic Cheeseman is Professor of Democracy and International Development at the University of Birmingham and was formerly the Director of the African Studies Centre at the University of Oxford. He mainly works on democracy, elections, and development and has conducted fieldwork in numerous African countries, including Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The articles that he has published based on this research have won a number of prizes, including the GIGA award for the best article in comparative area studies (2013) and the Frank Cass Award for the best article in democratization (2015). Professor Cheeseman is also the author or editor of ten books, including Democracy in Africa (2015), Institutions and Democracy in Africa (2017), How to Rig an Election (2018), and Coalitional Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective (2018). In addition, he is a former editor of the journal African Affairs and an advisor to and writer for Kofi Annan's African Progress Panel. In recognition of this academic and public contribution, the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom awarded him the prestigious Joni Lovenduski Prize for outstanding professional achievement by a midcareer scholar in 2019. A frequent commentator on African and global events, Professor Cheeseman's analysis has appeared in the Economist, Le Monde, the Financial Times, Newsweek, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the BBC, and the Daily Nation, and he writes a regular column for the Mail & Guardian. In total, his articles have been read over a million times. Many of his interviews and insights can be found on the website that he founded and co-edits, www.democracyinafrica.org.
