Curriculum
Anja Osei is a professor of Comparative Politics with a special focus on Africa at the Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science at Freie Universität Berlin. She holds a PhD in African Studies from the University of Leipzig and worked as a Postdoc at the University of Konstanz from 2010 to 2022.
Her research focuses on state and society in sub-Saharan Africa. She is especially interested in democratization, authoritarian regimes, and political institutions like parliaments and political parties. Furthermore, she works on elites, political power, and social stratification. She was the PI of the project „Do Legislatures Enhance Democracy in Africa? (DLEDA)“ funded by the European Research Council as an ERC Starting Grant. Employing a mix of quantitative, qualitative, and social network methods, she and her team explored what parliaments in Africa contribute to democratization. Other research interests include political regimes and military coups, political parties, and public opinion research.
Her work is situated at the intersection between Political Science and Area Studies. Gaining insights into contested notions of political order is only possible on a solid data basis and in close exchange with colleagues in the field. Her team is interdisciplinary and strives to overcome cleavages in the research landscape (qualitative vs. quantitative; political science vs. regional research; francophone/anglophone).