Africa Offshore: The Global Offshore Economy and the Reshaping of African Politics

DPIR’s Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, Professor of the International Politics of Africa, has been awarded a prestigious British Academy/Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship for a project examining the rise in a global offshore system of tax havens and unrestricted economies and how this has reshaped African economies.

A total of only 11 of the highly-competitive Fellowships have been granted nationwide across all subject areas.

Professor Soares de Oliveira is Professor of the International Politics of Africa in the Department of International Relations at the University of Oxford. He is co-editor of African Affairs, the journal of the Royal African Society, and co-director of the Oxford Martin School’s Programme on African Governance.

Building on original research in African states, the project is the first to explore the issue in a worldwide and relative context, also drawing on fieldwork in financial centres in the West and Asia and knowledge of finance, commodity training and professional service.

Professor Soares de Oliveira said: “I am delighted and honoured to be awarded the Leverhulme Trust/British Academy Senior Fellowship. It will be absolutely invaluable in advancing the Africa Offshore research”.

A subsequent book based on the project will give a radical perspective on African political economy, which will also appeal to a wider public interested in global development beyond scholars and policymakers in the field.