Dr Roelofs is a Lecturer in Politics in the Department of Political Economy. She has degrees from Oxford, SOAS and LSE. She has held post-doctoral fellowships at the LSE and St Anne’s College, Oxford. She has been a visiting researcher at the Universities of Maiduguri and Ibadan, Nigeria. She is co-convenor of the Political Studies Association special group on Global Development Politics and sits on the editorial board of the African Arguments book series. Dr Roelofs has served on the council of the African Studies Association UK and served as convenor of the Global South Research Group 2023-24. She is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Visit my personal website here.

Research

Dr Roelofs’ research lies at the intersection of development studies, African politics and political theory. Her work brings a critical approach to questions of governance, democracy and accountability, and problematises the political-economies that shape knowledge production in these fields.

Dr Roelofs’ book Good governance in Nigeria: Rethinking accountability and transparency in the twenty-first century draws on in-depth qualitative fieldwork in southwest Nigeria to propose new, socially-embedded conceptions of accountability and transparency. She has convened workshops and panels on ideas, ideology and values in African politics.

Dr Roelofs’ ongoing research explores new frontiers of privatisation, looking how new configurations of public and private actors, and states and markets, are shaping governance whether in the UK, Nigeria or beyond. This research focuses on two themes: the role of management consultants in government and public-private partnerships (PPPs).

She also has interests in the politics of public sector reform, parties and ideology, elite social networks, the politics of knowledge production, and the possibilities for decolonising the study of politics and development.

Teaching

Dr Roelofs is on leave for the 24-25 teaching terms.

Previous teaching:

• 6SSPP358 Politics of Trade
• 5SSPP African Political Economy
• 5SSPP266 Introduction to Climate Policy

• 6SSPP392 Political Effects of Climate Change
• 6SSPP375 Race and Racism in Political Theory
• LISS377 Knowledge Production in and about Africa (Doctoral Course)

PhD supervision

Current PhD students:

Tobechukwu Nneli - Diaspora Social Media Use and State Legitimacy in Nigeria

Dr Roelofs accepts applications for PhD supervision on topics closely linked to her research.

Publications

Good governance in Nigeria: Rethinking accountability and transparency in the twenty-first century (Cambridge University Press, 2023). Nigerian edition published by Noirledge Publishing, Ibadan August 2024. Reviewed in Democratization, Journal of Modern African Studies, Perspectives on Politics,
Journal of Development Studies. Progress in Development Studies, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, and LSE Review of Books.

Large Grant-Funded Research Centres and Concept Generation in Development Research, Journal of Development Studies, Dec 2024 (Online)

Hidden contestation: Valence issues, methodological blindness and the politics of development in Nigeria Democratization, Early view 1-24 2024

Urban renewal in Ibadan, Nigeria: World class but essentially Yoruba. African Affairs, 2021 (open access) 120 (480)

The death of political possibility? Reading State and Society in Nigeria 40 years on. Review of African Political Economy, 2022.

Contesting localisation in interfaith peacebuilding in Northern Nigeria. Oxford Development Studies, 2020. (Open access via this link.)

Making pandemic politics transparent: lessons from Nigeria, Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy (2020) Vol 28 (3).

Flying in the univer-topia: white people on planes, #RhodesMustFall and climate emergency, Journal of African Cultural Studies, 2019.

Beyond programmatic versus patrimonial politics: Contested conceptions of legitimate distribution in Nigeria. Journal of Modern African Studies, 2019, 57 (3).

Transparency and mistrust: Who or what should be made transparent? Governance, 2019, 32 (3)