Professor Rita Abrahamsen

Rita Abrahamsen
Chair of African Studies
rita.abrahamsen@africa.ox.ac.uk

Rita Abrahamsen joined the African Studies Centre in January 2026 as the Professor of African Studies. An interdisciplinary scholar, her research explores Africa’s position in the changing world order, focusing on the intersections of the global and the local, crossing the conventional boundaries of African Politics, International Relations, and Security Studies.

Her current research examines the impact of contemporary radical conservative movements on international politics and foreign policy. Her most recent book is the co-authored World of the Right: Radical Conservatism and Global Order (Cambridge University Press 2024), which explores the theoretical foundations and global interconnectedness of the radical right. She is writing a book about the Afrikaner minority and the geopolitical imaginary of the transnational radical right. Professor Abrahamsen is also interested in theorizing global order at a macro level, a theme explored in her forthcoming co-authored book Developing Hegemony: World Order and the Transnational Field of Development, which will be published by Stanford University Press in June 2026.

Her previous books include Security Beyond the State: Private Security in International Politics (2011), co-authored with Michael C. Williams, and Disciplining Democracy: Development Discourse and Good Governance in Africa (2000), as well as the edited volumes Conflict and Security in Africa (2013) and, with Anna Leander, The Routledge Handbook of Private Security Studies (2016). She is also a former editor of African Affairs.

Prior to coming to Oxford, Rita was Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa in Canada, where she was also the Director of the Center for International Policy Studies. She is the Nelson Madela Visiting Professor 2025-26 at Rhodes University and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Comparative and International Politics at Stellenbosch University, both in South Africa.

For more information, see her personal website.

Research Interests

Research Disciplines:

  • African Studies
  • International relations

Research Cluster:

 

Contact Information

Email: rita.abrahamsen@africa.ox.ac.uk

Find Professor Abrahamsen on LinkedIn.

Publications

Books

  • World of the Right: Radical Conservatism and Global Order, co-authored with J.F Drolet, M.C. Williams, S. Vucetic, A. K. Narita, and A. Gheciu (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2024)
  • ‍Handbook of Private Security Studies, co-edited with A. Leander (London: Routledge, 2016)
  • ‍Conflict, Security and Development in Africa, Editor, (Oxford: James Currey Press, 2013)
  • ‍Security Beyond the State: Private Security in International Politics, co-authored with M. C. Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)
  • ‍Disciplining Democracy: Development Discourse and Good Governance in Africa (London: Zed Books, 2000)
  • ‍Sudut Gelap Kemajuan - Indonesian Edition of Disciplining Democracy (Jakarta: LADFAL, 2004)

Articles

  • “Radical Right Dystopias in the Global Culture Wars”,‍ Global Studies Quarterly 5(1) 2025:1-11. Co-author M.C. Williams
  • “From Peacekeeping Missions to Global Peacekeeping Assemblages”, ‍International Affairs 100(3) 2024:899-917. Co-authors P. Albrecht, L. Patey and P.D. Williams
  • “Introduction: The African Union, Pan-Africanism and the Liberal World (Dis)Order”, Global Studies Quarterly 3(3) 2023:1-10. Co-authors B. Chimhandamba and F. Chipato
  • “Canada and the African Union: Towards a Shared Agenda”, Canadian Journal of African Studies 57(3) 2023: 731-747. Co-author B. Chimhandamba
  • “Uganda’s Fraudulent Election”, ‍Journal of Democracy 32(2) 2021:90-104. Co-author G. Bareebe
  • “Confronting the International Political Sociology of the New Right”, ‍International Political Sociology 14(1) 2020: 94-107. Co-authors J-F Drolet, A. Gheciu, K. Narita, S. Vucetic and M.C. Williams
  • “Internationalists, Sovereigntists, Nativists: Contending Visions of World Order in Pan-Africanism”, ‍Review of International Studies 46(1) 2020: 56-74.
  • “Defensive Development, Combative Contradictions: Towards an International Political Sociology of Global Militarism in Africa”, ‍Conflict, Security & Development 19(6) 2019:543-562.
  • “Introduction: Making Liberal Internationalism Great Again?”, ‍International Journal 74(1) 2019: 5–14. Co-authors L. Anderson and O.J. Sending
  • “Return of the Generals? Global Militarism in Africa from the Cold War to the Present”, Security Dialogue 49(1-2) 2018: 32-43. Translated as “Retorno dos Generais? Militarismo Global na África da Guerra Fria ao Presente”, Cadernos Cedec (129) 2020: 8-31 (Brazil)
  • “Africa and International Relations: Assembling Africa, Studying the World”, African Affairs 116(462) 2017: 125-139.
  • “Uganda’s 2016 Election: Not Even Faking It Anymore”, ‍African Affairs 115(461) 2017: 751-765. Co-author G. Bareebe
  • “Exporting Decentered Security Governance: The Tensions of Security Sector Reform”, Global Crime 17(2-4) 2016: 281-295. Reprinted in Mark Bevir, ed., Decentering Security: Policing Communities at Home and Abroad (London: Routledge, 2018).
  • “Security Privatization and Global Security Assemblages”, ‍Brown Journal of World Affairs XVIII(1) 2011: 171-180. Co-author M.C. Williams
  • “Rekonfigurering av sikkerhet og global sikkerhestskonstellasjoner”, Internasjonal Politikk 69 (3) 2011:471-481. Co-author M.C. Williams
  • “Guest Editors’ Introduction”, ‍Security Dialogue 40(4/5) 2009: 363-372.C o-authors M.C. Williams and D. Hubert
  • “Security Beyond the State: Global Security Assemblages in International Politics”, International Political Sociology 3(1) 2009: 1-17. Co-author M.C. Williams
  • “Democracy in the Age of Security”, ‍The Constitution: A Journal of Constitutional Development 9(1) 2009: 1-20.
  • “Selling Security: Assessing the Impact of Military Privatization”, ‍Review of International Political Economy 15(1) 2008:131-146. Co-author M.C. Williams
  • “Public/Private, Global/Local: The Changing Contours of Africa’s Security Governance”, ‍Review of African Political Economy 35(118) 2008: 539-553. Co-author M.C. Williams
  • “Introduction: The Privatization and Globalization of Security in Africa”, ‍International Relations (21) 2007: 131-141. Co-author M.C. Williams
  • “Securing the City: Private Security Companies and Non-State Authority in Global Governance”, ‍International Relations (21) 2007: 237-253. Co-author M.C. Williams
  • “Security Sector Reform: Bringing the Private in”, Conflict, Security & Development 6(1) 2006: 1-23. Co-author M.C. Williams
  • “Blair’s Africa: The Politics of Securitization and Fear”, Alternatives 30 (1) 2005: 55-80.
  • “The Power of Partnerships in Global Governance”, Third World Quarterly 25 (8) 2004: 1453-1467. Translated as "Partnerskap och makt i den globala styrningen", Fronesis 38-39, 2012, Sweden. Reprinted in Nic Cheeseman, ed., African Politics: Critical Concepts in Political Science; Africa and the World. Sovereignty, Dependency and Extraversion. (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 247-264.

Book chapters

  • “Pan-Africanism, Recognition, and World Order”, in Gunther Hellmann and Daniel Jacobi, eds., Rethinking World Orders. (Bristol: Bristol University Press, Forthcoming)
  • “The Radical Right Challenge to Global Cooperation”, in Gemma Bird and Sigrid Quack, eds., Understanding Global Cooperation: Transdisciplinary Perspectives. (Forthcoming). Co-author M.C. Williams
  • “The Global South and International Security”, in CIDOB International Yearbook 2024. (Barcelona: Centre for International Affairs. 2024) In Spanish and Catalonian.
  • “International Security and the Rise of the Global South”, in Alexandra Gheciu and William Wohlforth, eds., The Oxford Handbook of International Security. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). pp. 382–396. Co-author Adam Sandor
  • “Golden Assemblages: Security and Development in Tanzania’s Gold Mines”, in Paul Highgate and Mats Utas, eds., Private Security in Africa. (London: Zed Books, 2017), pp. 15-31. Co-author M.C. Williams.
  • “Assemblages”, in Xavier Guillaume and Pinar Bilgin, eds., Handbook of International Political Sociology. (London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 253-261.
  • “Frantz Fanon”, in Ned Lebow, Hidemi Sugenami and Peer Schouten, eds., The Return of the Theorists. (London: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2016), pp. 322-328.
  • “Discourses of Democracy, Practices of Autocracy: Shifting Meanings of Democracy in the Aid- Authoritarianism Nexus”, in Tobias Hagmann and Phillip Rentjens, eds., Aid and Authoritarianism in Africa: Development without Democracy. (London: Zed Books, 2016), pp. 21-43.
  • “Power”, in Aoileann N. Mhurchu and Reiko Shindo, eds., Critical Imaginations in IR. (London: Routledge, 2016), pp.153-165.
  • “Security Privatisation, the State and Development in the Global South”, in Daniel Hammett and J. Grugel, eds., The Palgrave Handbook of International Development. (London: Palgrave, 2016), pp. 243-357.
  • “Publics, Practices, and Power”, in Jacqueline Best and Alexandra Gheciu, The Return of the Public in Global Governance. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 243-256. Co-author M.C. Williams
  • “Tracing Global Assemblages, Bringing Bourdieu to the Field: A Conversation with Rita Abrahamsen and Michael Williams”, in Michele Acuto and Simon Curtis, eds., Reassembling International Theory: Assemblage Thinking and International Relations. (London: Palgrave, 2014), pp. 25-32.
  • “Security and the Privatization of Force and Violence”, inn Nic Cheeseman, David Anderson and Andrea Scheibler, eds., Handbook of African Politics. (London: Routledge, 2013), pp. 49-58.
  • “Introduction: Conflict and Security in Africa”, in Rita Abrahamsen, ed., Conflict, Security and Development in Africa. (Oxford: James Currey Publishers, 2013), pp. 1-12.
  • “The Seductiveness of Good Governance”, inn Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury, eds., Is Good Government Good for Development? The United Nations Series on Development. (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012), pp. 29-51.
  • “Sovereignty, Security, Privatization: The New Contours of Africa’s Security Governance”, in Scarlet Cornelissen, Fantu Cheru and Tim Shaw, eds., Africa and International Relations in the Twenty-First Century: Still Challenging Theory? (London: Palgrave Macmillan 2011), pp. 162-176.
  • “Privatization in Practice”, in Vincent Pouliot and Emmanuel Adler, eds., International Practices. (Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 310-331. Co-author M.C. Williams
  • “Securing the City: Private Security Companies and Non-State Authority in Global Governance”, in Bryan Mabee and Alex Colas, eds., Mercenaries, Pirates, Bandits and Empires: Private Violence in Historical Context. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), pp. 213-235. Co-author M.C. Williams
  • “Manfred Max-Neef”, in David Simon, eds., Fifty Key Thinkers on Development. (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 171-6.
  • “Democracia y desarrollo en África Subsahariana”, in Ana Rosa Alcalde and Alfonso Ortiz, eds., Democracia y buen gobierno en África Subsahariana. (Madrid: Fundación Carolina, 2007), pp. 3-32.