LCS-IR201 Africa and Global Transformation: The Rise of Emerging Powers and a New International Order

Professor Chris Alden is co-convenor of this course at the LSE-UCT July School and is internationally recognised as a leading scholar on the dynamic role of emerging powers in Africa. Amongst his publications are Emerging Powers in Africa (LSE-IDEAS 2013); The South in World Politics (Palgrave 2010); China Returns to Africa (Hurst 2008) and China in Africa (Zed 2007). He is currently involved in editing a book on BRICS and Africa and co-editing a set of country-specific monographs on China and Brazil in Southern Africa.

He has held fellowships at Cambridge University, Tokyo University, and Ecole Normale Superieure as well as won grants from DFID, the Open Society Institute and the MacArthur Foundation. He is Senior Research Associate of the Global Powers Programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), a research associate of the University of Pretoria, review editor of IISS and director of the LSE-IDEAS Africa Programme. Dr Alden taught at Wits University for ten years, where he co-founded the continent’s first Asian studies research centre in 1992.

Dr Karen Smith is co-convenor of this course at the LSE-UCT July School and teaches International Relations at the University of Cape Town (UCT). From 2000 to 2010, she was based at the University of Stellenbosch. She is a research associate at the Institute of Global Dialogue, an associate editor of the journal International Political Sociology, and previously served as Secretary-General of the United Nations Association of South Africa.

Her current research interests include South Africa’s foreign policy, the emerging powers - especially India, new global governance groupings like IBSA and BRICS, Africa and International Relations theory, the changing world order, and friendship in international relations.

Dr Folashadé Soulé-Kohndou is a Guest Lecturer on the LSE-UCT July School and teaches international relations and political science at undergraduate and graduate level at Sciences Po, Paris. She has held fellowships at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), the Research and Information System for developing countries (RIS) in New Delhi, the Instituto Rio Banco (IRBr) in Brasilia and at the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC). She was a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of International Relations of the London School of Economics in 2015 and is affiliated to the Global Economic Governance programme at Oxford University as a research associate. Her current research focuses on African agency in global politics, the politics of south-south cooperation, and rising powers in global governance.