Meet our Democracy and Development Fellows based at UCT

21 Nov 2024
UCT fellows
21 Nov 2024

The Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town (UCT), is pleased to welcome eight post-doctoral and senior research fellows for a residential fellowship programme. The fellows arrived at UCT on 1 October 2024 for their 8-month fellowship which will end on 30 May 2025. The fellows will undertake a research theme under 'Democratizing the Developmental State,' the project understands a developmental state as one where political elite intervene in economic activities with the overarching goal of improving the international market competitiveness of their domestic production. Major issues confronting both scholars and practitioners include identifying the conditions under which developmental states emerge, inquiring into how to catalyse those conditions within democratic politics, and examining developmental states' transitions and trajectories from authoritarianism to democracy. 

Meet the fellows: 

  • Aldo Fernando Ponce Ugolini - Associate Professor, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE-Mexico City). 
  • Alex Dyzenhaus - Alex Dyzenhaus studies the political economy of land, redistribution and democracy in Africa. 
  • Elene Pérez Lagüela - Associate Professor, Comillas Pontifical University, Madrid, Spain. 
  • Gideon H. Chitanga - Post-doctoral Researcher, Centre for Africa China Studies, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. 
  • Hamza Delbar - Dr Hamza Delbar holds a PhD in Philosophy from Monash University, specializing in political science. 
  • Illan Nam - Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Colgate University.
  • Mark Vong - Mark’s research examines the political institutions, social dynamics and international behaviour of authoritarian regimes with a regional focus on Southeast Asia. 
  • Pedro Alarcon - Visiting professor Latin American Studies and International Relations, University of Vienna. 
Fellows

This fellowship programme is made possible by the OSUN Forum on Democracy Development - CEU Democracy Institute (Budapest) in partnership with Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá), the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town and the Social Scientists’ Association of Sri Lanka (Colombo).