Room 5.26, Robert Leslie Social 

What makes you interesting?

I was once featured in a reality TV show, but I will not say which one. J

• Roles

  • Politics Department Undergraduate Committee
  • Departmental Representative to Senate
  • Management Committee: Institute for Democracy, Citizenship and Public Policy in Africa ·
  • Humanities Faculty Transformation Committee

• Biography

  Alecia Ndlovu is a political scientist focusing on socioeconomic development, political institutions, resource governance and energy politics in Africa. She uses both quantitative and qualitative research methods and has experience conducting fieldwork in Ghana, Zambia, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa. She is the principal investigator for a Worldwide Universities Network project focusing on the political and institutional determinants of human development in sub-Saharan Africa's resource-rich economies. The project brings together researchers from six institutions in Africa, Asia and Europe.
  
  Ndlovu completed her PhD in International Relations from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2023. She also holds a BA in Applied Economics and International Relations and an MA (with distinction) in International Relations, for which she won the Wits School of Social Sciences Postgraduate Research Award.

• External Appointments

  International Steering Committee Member: African Social Research Initiative (ASRI), University of Michigan, African Studies Center

• Research, Knowledge Exchange and Impact

  Research Interests

  • The political economy of development
  • Political institutions and party systems in Africa
  • Governance of Africa’s natural resources and the energy transition
  • The politics of international trade and regional economic integration in Africa
  • Public debt and economic sustainability
  • Quantitative research methods

  Current Research Activities:

  • Principal Investigator: Political and institutional determinants of human development in sub-Saharan Africa’s resource-rich economies, Worldwide Universities Network Project, A collaboration between research from six institutions in Africa, Asia, and Europe.
  • DHI Network-Collaboration Fellowship: Resource-rich Traditional Kingdoms and Human Development in Africa (with Dr Shingirai Taodzera, University of California, Davis)

• Teaching

  Undergraduate teaching:

  POL2039F: Politics of International Economic Relations

  Postgraduate teaching:

  POL4035S/POL5032S: International Political Economy

  POL5035F: Data analysis in Political Science: Quantitative

• Postgraduate Supervision  

  I supervise topics related to my research interests in the following fields:

  • Comparative politics
  • International Political Economy
  • International Relations
  • Politics and Governance in Africa

• Publications

  Peer-reviewed articles

  Ndlovu, X. A., Ngwane, Z., & Mongae, M. (2022). The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Political Settlement in South Africa’s Mining Industry. The Thinker, 90 (1).

  Selected conference papers and presentations 

  • Ndlovu, X.A., Eyita-Okon, E., Maphosa., M. (2023). The Energy Transition in Africa: Citizens’ Perceptions and the Debt Burden in Resource-rich Economies, African Studies Annual Meeting., San Francisco, USA.
  • Ndlovu, X.A., Kroenke, M. (2017). The Effect of Party Systems and Party Institutionalization Satisfaction with Government Services in Africa. Africa Studies Association Meeting, Chicago, USA.
  • Ndlovu, X.A. (2015). On brown Envelopes and Green Accounting: Researching the Politics of Resource-based Development in Africa. African Politics Conference Group Newsletter, 11(1)
  • Alence, R., Ndlovu, X.A. (2013). Why Some African Countries Are Governed Better than Others. African Social Research Initiative Bi-Annual Conference, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.