Jeffrey Paller

Jeffrey Paller specializes in African politics and sustainable urban development, and his research examines the practice of democracy and accountability in urban Africa. He has conducted fieldwork in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa. He recently published the book Democracy in Ghana: Everyday Politics in Urban Africa (Cambridge UP, 2019). His new project examines the contentious politics of African urbanization. He has received funding from the Social Science Research Council, National Science Foundation, and the University of Wisconsin. His work is published in Polity, Comparative Politics, African Studies Review, Journal of Modern African Studies, Africa Spectrum, and Africa Today.

Before coming to USF, he served as an Earth Institute postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University, and was a visiting lecturer of politics at Bates College. He curates the weekly news bulletin “This Week in Africa.”

• Director, Minor in African Studies

• PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• BA, Northwestern University

• J. Paller (2020). “Everyday politics and sustainable urban development in the Global South.” Area Development and Policy. Online First.
• J. Paller (2019). Democracy in Ghana: Everyday Politics in Urban Africa. Cambridge University Press.
• J. Paller (2019). "Dignified public expression: A new logic of political accountability." Comparative Politics 52 (1): 85-116.
• J. Paller (2019). "Building permanence: Fire outbreaks and emergent tenure security in urban Ghana.” Africa: International African Institute 89 (3): 437-456.
• J. Paller (2014). "Informal Institutions and Personal Rule in Urban Ghana." African Studies Review 57(3), 123-142.