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Harry Verhoeven

Dr Harry Verhoeven is a well-known scholar and senior policy advisor whose work focuses on East Africa and Central Africa. He is the Convenor of the Oxford University China-Africa Network and a Senior Advisor to the European Institute of Peace.  Dr Verhoeven has particular expertise on the modus operandi of ruling parties in East and Central Africa and the practices of state security organs, including armed forces, intelligence services, paramilitary units and police. His understanding of these security services, their decision-making and their human rights track-record has underpins his extensive and widely solicited engagement with the EU, United Nations, civil society, law firms and governmental departments in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.


 

Name
Harry Verhoeven
Occupation
Professor and Policy Advisor
Expertise

Dr Harry Verhoeven is a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University. He is also the Convenor of the Oxford University China-Africa Network, an Associate Member of the Department of Politics & International Relations at the University of Oxford and a Senior Adviser to the European Institute of Peace. Prof Verhoeven completed a doctorate at the University of Oxford, where he subsequently served as a postdoctoral fellow and a Junior Research Fellow. He is the author and editor of numerous books and is deeply invested in the human rights of individuals and communities in the countries where he works.

Dr Verhoeven has lived and worked in four continents and conducted over 15 years of primary research with decision-makers and diverse communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Sudan and Uganda, as well as in a range of other countries and contexts (e.g. Brazil, China, Somalia, South Africa, Tanzania, United Arab Emirates)

Experience

More than 80 expert reports and testimonies in immigration court in the US and UK on cases pertaining to Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Sudan and Uganda

Publications
  1. Books
  • Beyond Liberal Order: States, Societies and Markets in the Global Indian Ocean. (editor, with Anatol Lieven) New York: Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2021
  • Environmental Politics in the Middle East. Local Struggles, Global Connections (editor) New York: Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2018
  • Why Comrades Go To War. Liberation Politics and the Outbreak of Africa’s Deadliest Conflict. (co-author: Philip Roessler) New York: Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2016.

·         Water, Civilisation and Power in Sudan. The Political Economy of Military-Islamist State Building. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 

  1. Special Issues
  • Marx and Lenin in Africa and Asia. Socialism(s) and Socialist Legacies. (guest editor) Third World Quarterly, Vol.42, 2, 2021.
  • Water Securityin Africa in the Age of Global Climate Change. (guest editor, with Allen Isaacman & Mucha Musemwa) Daedalus: The Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol.150, 3, 2021
  1. Articles
  • “From Imperial Power to Regional Policeman: Ethiopian Peacekeeping and the Developmental State”, International Affairs, Vol.100, 3, 2024. (co-author: Tefera Negash Gebregziabher)
  • “The Road (not) Taken: the Contingencies of Sovereignty and Infrastructure in the Horn of Africa”, Political Geography, Vol.110, 2024. (co-author: Biruk Terrefe)
  • “Surviving Revolution and Democratization: the Sudan Armed Forces, State Fragility and Security Competition”, Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol.61, 3, 2023.
  • “Who Lost Ethiopia? The Unmaking of an African Anchor State and US Foreign Policy”, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol.43, 4, 2022. (co-author: Michael Woldemariam)
  • “Politics by Default: China and the Global Governance of African Debt”, Survival, Vol.64, 3, 2022. (co-author: Nicolas Lippolis)
  • “Before the Deluge: Reforming Gulf States and its Illusions in the Shadow of an Energy Transition”, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.,1, 2022.
  • “The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Africa’s Water Tower, Environmental Justice and Infrastructural Power”, Daedalus: The Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol.150, 3, 2021.
  • “Climate & Water in a Changing Africa: Uncertainty, Adaptation & the Social Construction of Fragile Environments”, Daedalus: The Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol.150, 3, 2021.
  • “Liberation in Theory and in Practice. Ethiopia and its Political Modernities” Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol.59, 2, 2021
  • “’What is to be Done?’ Rethinking Socialism(s) and Socialist Legacies in a Postcolonial World”, Third World Quarterly, Vol.41, 12, 2020.
  • “The Party and the Gun: African Liberation, Asian Comrades and Socialist Political Technologies”, Third World Quarterly, Vol.41, 12, 2020.
  • “Overcoming Smallness: Qatar, the UAE and Strategic Realignment in the Gulf”, International Politics, Vol.56, 4, 2019. (co-author: Rory Miller)
  • “The Gulf and the Horn: Changing Geographies of Security Interdependence and Competing Visions of Regional Order”, Civil Wars, Vol.20, 3, 2018.
  • “Taming Intervention: Sovereignty, Statehood and Political Order in Africa”, Survival, Vol.60, 2, 2018, pp.7-32. (co-author: Ricardo Soares de Oliveira)
  • “African Dam Building as Extraversion: the case of Sudan’s Dam Programme, Nubian Resistance and the Saudi-Iranian Proxy War in Yemen”, African Affairs, Vol.115, 461, 2016.
  • “To Intervene in Darfur, or not: Re-examining the R2P Debate and its Impact”, Global Society, Vol.30, 1, 2016. (co-authors: Madhan Mohan and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira)
  • “Re-Engineering the State, Awakening the Nation: Dams and Islamist Modernity”, Water Alternatives, Vol.9, 2, 2016. (co-author: Maimuna Mohamud)
  • “Ethiopia: Africa’s Coming Hegemon”, Foreign Affairs, April 2015.
  • “The Nexus as Political Commodity: Agricultural Development, Water Policy and Elite Rivalry in Egypt”, International Journal of Water Resources Development, Vol.31, 3 2015.
  • “The Genealogy of Discourses on Environmental Insecurity and Climate Wars in Africa”,Geopolitics, Vol.19, 4, 2014.
  • “ ’Our Identity is Our Currency’: South Africa, the Responsibility to Protect and the Logic of African Intervention”, Conflict, Security and Development, Vol.14, 2, 2014. (co-authors: Ricardo Soares de Oliveira and CSR Murthy)
  • “Is Beijing’s Non-Interference Policy History? How Africa Changed China”, The Washington Quarterly, Vol.37, 2, 2014.
  • “The Politics of African Energy Development: Ethiopia’s hydro-agricultural state-building strategy and clashing paradigms of water security”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, Vol.371, No.2002, 30 September 2013.
  • “The Rise and Fall of Sudan’s Al-Ingaz Revolution: the Transition from Militarised Islamism to Economic Salvation and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement”, Civil Wars, Vol.15, 2, 2013, pp.118-140.
  • “The Logic of War and Peace in Sudan”, Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol.49, 4, 2011, pp.671-684
  • “Sudan’s Islamists and the Post-Oil Era: Washington’s Role after Southern Secession”, Middle East Policy, Vol. 18, 3, 2011, pp.133-143 (Co-author: Luke A. Patey)
  • “Climate Change, Development and Conflict in Sudan. Neo-Malthusian Global Narratives and Local Power Struggles.”, Development and Change, Vol.42, 3, 2011, pp.679-707.
  • “The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Failed States: Somalia, State Collapse and the Global War on Terror.”, Journal of Eastern African Studies, Vol.3, 3, 2009, pp.405-425.
  1. Book Chapters, Professional Newsletters and Working Papers
  • “Regional Organisations in the Horn of Africa: From State-centred to People-centred Integration?”, In: Charles Manga Fombad, Assefa Fiseha, Nico Steytler (eds.) Contemporary Governance Challlenges in the Horn of Africa. (editor) London: Routledge, 2022 (co-author: Zeray Yihdego)
  • “Lost in Transition: Sudan’s Counterrevolution and Regional Politics” In: American Political Science Association Newsletter- MENA Politics, Vol.5, 1, 2022, pp.49-54
  • “Ordering the Global Indian Ocean: The Enduring Condition of Thin Hegemony”, In: Harry Verhoeven, Anatol Lieven (eds.) Beyond Liberal Order: States, Societies and Markets in the Global Indian Ocean. (editor) New York: Oxford University Press, 2021
  • “Congo Wars”, In: Paul Zeleza (ed.) Oxford Bibliographies in African Studies. Oxford University Press, 2020.
  • “The Mirage of Supply-Side Development: The Hydraulic Mission and the Politics of Agriculture and Water in the Nile Basin” In: Dale Whittington (ed.), Oxford Encyclopedia of Water Resources Management and Policy, Oxford University Press, 2019.
  • “The Other Gulf Cold War: GCC Rivalries in Africa”, In: Rory Miller (ed.), The Gulf Crisis: the view from Qatar, Hamad Bin Khalifa Press, 2018, pp.167-188.
  • “The Middle East in Global Environmental Politics”, In: Harry Verhoeven (ed.) Environmental Politics in the Middle East. Local Struggles, Global Connections. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
  • “Nelson Mandela and Changing Agendas of Pan-Africanism: African Liberation Politics from 1950 to the Present”, Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Busani Ngcaweni (eds.), Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela: Decolonial Ethics of Liberation and Servant Leadership. Africa World Press, 2017, pp.137-161.
  • “The Gulf States in the Political Economy of the Nile Basin: A Historical Overview”, Emil Sandström, Terje Østigård, Anders Jagerskog (eds.), Water Politics in the Nile River Basin. Challenges and New Investments. London: I.B. Tauris, 2016, pp.53-72.
  •  “Saudi Arabia and the Horn of Africa”, Neil Patrick (ed.), Saudi Arabian Foreign Policy. Conflict and Cooperation. London: I.B. Tauris, 2016, pp.92-110. (co-author: Eckart Woertz)
  • “Africa’s Illiberal State-Builders”, Department of International Development/Refugee Studies Centre Working Paper, University of Oxford, 2013 (co-authors: Will Jones and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira)
  • “Sudan and its Agricultural Revival: a Regional Breadbasket at Last or Another Mirage in the Desert?” Tony Allan, Martin Keulertz, Suvi Sojamo, Jeroen Warner (eds.), Handbook Land and Water Grabs. London: Routledge, 2012, pp.41-54.
  • “Nurturing Democracy or into the Danger Zone? The Rwandan Patriotic Front, Elite Fragmentation and Post-Liberation Politics”, Madalena Campeoni, Patrick Noack (eds.), Rwanda Fast Forward. London: Palgrave, 2012, pp.265-280.
  • “ ‘Dams are Development’: China, the Al-Ingaz Regime and the Political Economy of the Sudanese Nile”, Dan Large, Luke A. Patey, (eds.) Sudan Looks East. China, India and the Politics of Asian Alternatives. Oxford: James Currey, 2011, pp.120-138
Fees
[Private to EIN members]
Contact email
Harryverhoeven33@gmail.com
Phone
[Private to EIN members]
Address
[Private to EIN members]
Countries of expertise:
  • Democratic Republic of Congo
  • Eritrea
  • Ethiopia
  • Rwanda
  • Sudan
  • Uganda