About
Benjamin is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Development Studies at the University of Louvain (Belgium) and a Visiting Senior Fellow in the Department of Methodology at the London School of Economics (LSE).
He completed his PhD in the Department of International Development at LSE, where he subsequently held a LSE fellowship. He later joined the University of Cambridge as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow and Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College (2018–2020). He has also been a Research Associate at the University of Manchester’s Effective States and Inclusive Development Research Centre and has taught at the University of Burundi. He is a co-editor of Politique Africaine, a leading French-language journal in African studies.
Alongside his academic work, Benjamin regularly consults for international organisations, including the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). His research has been featured in international media outlets such as The Guardian, Le Monde, the BBC World Service, and Radio France Internationale.
Research
His research focuses on the dynamics of state formation and the political economy of development policies. He also examines the transformation of former rebel movements into ruling parties, with particular attention to the ideological shifts that accompany this process. His fieldwork is centred on the Great Lakes region of Africa, especially Burundi and Rwanda.
Publications
Chemouni, B., & Dye, B. (2024). The limits of concentrated power: Bureaucratic independence and electricity crises in Rwanda. African Affairs, 123(490), 75–101.
Ansoms, A., Aoun, E., Chemouni, B., Niyonkuru, R.-C., & Williams, T. P. (2022). The politics of policymaking in Rwanda: Adaptation and reform in agriculture, energy, and education. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 16, 205–227.
Chemouni, B., & Mugiraneza, A. (2020). Ideology and interests in the Rwandan Patriotic Front: Singing the struggle in pre-genocide Rwanda. African Affairs, 119, 115–140.
Chemouni, B. (2020). La recherche sur l’État rwandais en débat. Politique Africaine, 160, 7–34.
Chemouni, B. (2018). The political path to universal health coverage: Power, ideas and community-based health insurance in Rwanda. World Development, 106, 87–98.
Ridde, V., Asomaning Antwi, A., Boidin, B., Chemouni, B., Hane, F., & Touré, L. (2018). Time to abandon amateurism and volunteerism: Addressing tensions between the Alma-Ata principle of community participation and the effectiveness of community-based health insurance in Africa. BMJ Global Health, 3(Suppl 3), e001056.
Chemouni, B. (2017). Taking stock of Rwanda’s decentralisation: Changing local governance in a post-conflict environment. Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal, 1(6), 763–778.
Chemouni, B. (2014). Explaining the design of the Rwandan decentralization: Elite vulnerability and the territorial repartition of power. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 8, 246–262.