Catherine Boone is Professor of Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is a political scientist interested in patterns regionalism and political-economic development issues in Africa in a comparative perspective. Her work is or has been funded by the UK Research Council ESRC, LSE International Inequalities Institute, LSE STICERD, the SSRC, Fulbright, the World Bank, Harvard Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (ACLS). She is an elected Fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the British Academy.
Professor Boone is the author of four books, including of Property and Political Order: Land Rights and the Structure of Politics in Africa (Cambridge, 2014), which won APSA's 2016 Luebbert Book Award for best book in Comparative Politics, and of a new book on the politics of spatial inequality in African countries, Inequality and Political Cleavage in Africa: Regionalism by Design, which will be out in March 2024 (Cambridge University Press).
In 2024-2025, Professor Boone will be on sabbatical, but still present at LSE for seminars and PhD students while traveling intermittently for her new project on politics of changing commodity value chains in African agriculture.
In 2020 and 2021, she was elected to the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She serves on the editorial board of several journals and book series, including the Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics series, the CUP Elements series, and Comparative Politics. She is member or past member of the editorial boards of the American Political Science Review, Journal of Modern African Studies, African Affairs, Comparative Political Studies, World Politics, Studies in Comparative International Development, and the African Studies Review. She is past Secretary of the African Politics Conference Group, and past Treasurer and President of the West African Research Association, which oversees the West African Research Center in Dakar, Senegal. She has served as member of the Board of Directors of the African Studies Association (ASA), 2009-2012, chair of the ASA Publications Committee, (2011-2012), member of the Executive Council of the American Political Science Association-, member APSA's Comparative Politics Section executive council, and Chair of the Political Economy Organized Section of APSA (2014-2016).
The Spatial Inequalities in African Political Economy project, funded by the ESRC, ended in 2023. Click here for the UKRI website.
Catherine Boone Professor of Comparative Politics London School of Economics and Political Science Depts. of Government and International Development Connaught House, Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE UK [email protected]