Ali A. Mazrui Senior Fellow
Abdourahamane Idrissa is a political scientist with strong interests in history and political economy. He earned his doctorate from the University of Florida after conducting research on democratization and political Islam in the Sahel. He subsequently developed expertise in the political economy of development through two years of postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford and Princeton University. He is a Senior Researcher at Leiden University’s African Studies Centre.
Idrissa has published widely in English and French. His publications include the wide-ranging book The Politics of Islam in the Sahel: Between Persuasion and Violence, which covers five countries and multiple historical periods, and L’Afrique pour les nuls (Africa for Dummies), published as part of the French edition of the popular For Dummies series. His recent research focuses on the effects of jihadist violence on state-building and sociopolitical democratization in the Sahel, particularly in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Part of this work has been conducted in collaboration with the Dutch research institute Clingendael and Économie Politique et Gouvernance Autonome (EPGA), a think tank Idrissa founded in Niger.
Idrissa’s work has also appeared in widely circulated publications, including the London Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, New Left Review, and Sidecar.
As a 2022 recipient of the Ali A. Mazrui Senior Fellowship in Global African Studies at The Africa Institute, Idrissa worked on a book about the Songhay Empire and the significant changes that occurred on the global stage during the empire’s century of existence, the pivotal sixteenth century. The book is under contract with Allen Lane and Penguin Books.
