Stephen D.K. Ellis is Senior Researcher at the Africa Studies Centre, University of Leiden. A former editor of Africa
Confidential and African Affairs, he is an historian and the author of several well known books on conflict and crisis in Africa, including The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War (NYU Press, 1999; Hurst & Co Publishers, 2006) and Worlds of Power: Religious Thought and Political Practice in Africa (Hurst & Co Publishers, 2004), coauthored with Gerrie ter Haar. He is currently completing a general history of Madagascar, due for publication in 2008, and is initiating a new project on the history of Nigerian organized crime.
He regularly conducts fieldwork in Africa, and was Director of the Africa programme at the International Crisis Group in 2003-2004. During that time, he set up or managed research teams based in Senegal, South Africa, and Kenya, and traveled extensively and met senior official and policymakers throughought the continent, at the UN and elsewhere.
He'll be posting regularly to CTLab, exploring state failure, the exercise of power, the organization of crime, corruption, and violence, and strains on the sovereign entitlements of states. | External Site |