Prof. Nicola de Jager

Prof. Nicola de Jager holds a PhD in Political Science and is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, Stellenbosch University and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Commonwealth and Comparative Politics. She is a nationally rated researcher (NRF), a fellow of the African Oxford Initiative (AfOx) at Oxford University in 2018,  a country expert since 2013 for V-Dem and formerly a research associate of the Transformation Research Unit (TRU). TRU was a research unit focused on projects dealing with transformations from autocracy to democracy and the reverse. Nicola has edited two books: South African Politics published by Oxford University Press and Friend or Foe? Dominant party systems in southern Africa: Lessons from the developing world (co-editor Prof. Pierre du Toit) published by UCT Press and the UNU Press. She has published in several peer-reviewed journals, including Democratization, Third World Quarterly, Politikon, Taiwan Journal of Democracy and the Journal of Contemporary African Studies on topics of comparative politics, religion and politics, democratisation, South African politics, and southern African politics.

Prof. Eric Kaufmann

Prof. Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of Whiteshift: Immigration, Populism and the Future of White Majorities (Penguin/ Abrams, 2018/19). Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth (Profile Books 2010), The Rise and Fall of Anglo – America (Harvard 2004), The Orange Order (Oxford, 2007) and one other book. He is co – editor, among others, of Political Demography (Oxford 2012) and editor of Rethinking Ethnicity: Majority Groups and Dominant Minorities (Routledge 2004). He has also written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Times of London, Newsweek, National Review, New Statesman, Financial Times and other outlets.

Midpoint Paper 2022-3 The Return to History_Prof de Jager