معرفی
Michael Wahman is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University (MSU) and core faculty member at MSU’s African Studies Center. He will join the University of Texas-Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs as a Professor in 2026. His research focuses on African democracy, electoral systems, and political representation, with a particular emphasis on subnational dynamics and electoral violence in Zambia and Malawi. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Lund University (2012) and has held prior positions at institutions including the London School of Economics and the University of Missouri.
His research explores challenges in organizing free elections, equitable representation, and the role of violence in campaign strategies. Key topics include party system development, intra-party democracy, electoral fraud, and judicial intervention in elections. His landmark book Controlling Territory, Controlling Voters (Oxford UP, 2023) analyzes how campaign violence reinforces territorial control in African electoral politics. He collaborates with organizations like the National Democratic Institute and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy to strengthen African democracies.
Wahman’s teaching spans comparative politics, democratization, and African/European politics at both undergraduate and graduate levels. He advises Ph.D. students and has served on numerous dissertation committees. His international advisory work includes roles with Malawi’s Institute for Policy Interaction and Denmark’s DIPD, focusing on women’s political representation and party development. He has also trained international election monitors and contributed extensively to policy analysis on African electoral systems.
