Professional Affiliation

Warren Weinstein Chair of African Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, former Wilson Center Africa Program fellow

Expert Bio

Peter Lewis is the Warren Weinstein Chair of African Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Lewis, who served as SAIS Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs from 2015 to 2018, has directed the school's Africa Studies program since joining Johns Hopkins SAIS in 2006, and currently oversees the school’s Middle East program.

Lewis’ research and teaching focus on economic reform and political transition in developing countries, with particular emphasis on governance and development in sub-Saharan Africa. He has written extensively on economic adjustment, democratization, and civil society in Africa; democratic reform and political economy in Nigeria; public attitudes toward reform and democracy in West Africa; and the comparative politics of economic change in Africa and Southeast Asia. His most recent book, Coping with Crisis in African States, examines sources of resilience and fragility across African countries and presents a series of critical cases. His previous book, Growing Apart: Politics and Economic Change in Indonesia and Nigeria is concerned with the institutional basis of economic development. Lewis has published several other co-authored and edited books, numerous book chapters, and articles in World Politics, World Development, the Journal of Democracy, the Journal of Modern African Studies, African Affairs, and others.

Wilson Center Project

"Growing Apart: Governance and Economic Change in Indonesia and Nigeria"

Project Summary

This project examines the relationship between governance and economic performance in Indonesia and Nigeria -- both large, multiethnic, oil-exporting states that have been ruled by authoritarian governments for more than thirty years. Despite these likenesses, the two countries diverged markedly for more than two decades in economic performance. Today, however, they face similar challenges of democratization and market reform. The study will examine four political factors critical to long-term economic restructuring as they apply to both Indonesia and Nigeria:


 

• the character of institutions
   
• the nature of leadership
   
• the array of social coalitions
   
• external policy learning.

 

 

 

 

The research seeks to generate more general comparative inferences about the politics of economic change.

 

 

 

 

Major Publications

• Politics and Society in Contemporary Africa, with Naomi Chazan and Robert Mortimer (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999)
   
• Stabilizing Nigeria: Pressures, Incentives, and Support for Civil Society, with Barnett Rubin and Pearl Robinson (The Twentieth Century Fund/Century Foundation Report, 1998)
   
• "Economic Reform and Political Transition in Africa: The Quest for a Politics of Development," in World Politics, October 1996