Anna Wolkenhauer
Anna Wolkenhauer is a political scientist and since 2022 a research associate (post-doc) at the Collaborative Research Centre 1342 in a project on social change in rural Africa. Before that, she was research associate at the InIIS and doctoral student at BIGSSS where she received her PhD in 2020 with a project on state formation and social policy in Zambia. She held visiting positions at the London School of Economics and the University of Zambia.
During the Winter Term 2024/25, she is Substitue Professor of International Relations at the University of Bremen.
Social policy and social protection
Southern Africa, esp. Zambia and Botswana
Colonial legacies
International Organisations
Agriculture and food policies
Knowledge and expertise
Qualitative methods, esp. Grounded Theory
澳门皇冠_皇冠足球比分-劲爆体育 Forschungsprojekt/Current project
: Social Policy and Rural Development in Africa, www.socialpolicydynamics.de/projects/project-area-b-transregional-dynamics/project-b09-2022-25-
2024. “Knowing and unknowing the countryside – epistemological implications of rural social policy in Zambia”. In: Anderl, Felix (ed.): Epistemologies of Land, Rowman and Littlefield International.
2023. “Everyday sense making and the discursive delineation of social policy space in Zambia.” In: Social Policy & Administration.
2023. “Reflexivity in global social policy: Introduction to the special issue.” In: Global Social Policy 23(3) (with John Berten).
2023. “Neoliberalism, social policy, and the state: searching for the transformative potential of Zambia’s Social Cash Transfer.” In: Journal of Development Studies/Revue canadienne d’études du développement.
2022. “The colonial legacies of copper dependence: Inequality and bifurcated social protection in Zambia.” In: Nullmeier, Frank, Delia González de Reufels, and Herbert Obinger (eds.): International Impacts on Social Policy: Short Histories in a Global Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan.
2021. “The role of agents and coercive learning in social policy diffusion in Sub-Saharan Africa.” IDS Working Paper No. 559 and SOCIUM SFB 1342 Working Papers No. 22/2022 (with Stephen Devereux).
2021. “International Organizations and Food: Nearing the End of the Lean Season?” In: Martens, Kerstin/Niemann, Dennis/Kaasch, Alexandra (eds.): International Organizations in Global Social Governance, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 297-321.
2021. Book Review: Jimi Adesina, ed., 2021. “Policy in the African Context.” Review of African Political Economy, 23rd November 2021.
2021. Book Review: Iva Pe?a, 2019. “Roads through Mwinilunga: A History of Social Change in Northwest Zambia.” In: African Studies Quarterly 20: 2, pp. 110-112.
2021. “Bringing global capitalism back into the picture – social protection programmes in Africa.” Blog post, Review of African Political Economy, 12th October 2021.
2021. “Keinen Plan furs Land?” [Engl.: no plans for the countryside?], Blog post, Jacobin, 23rd March 2021 (with Felix Anderl).
2020. “Reviewed: Olivier de Sardan, Jean-Pierre and Emmanuelle Piccoli (eds); 2018, Cash Transfers in Context: An Anthropological Perspective.” In: Critical Social Policy 40: 3, pp. 494-496.
2018. “Book Review: Cooking Data: Culture and Politics in an African Research World by Crystal Biruk.” In: LSE Review of Books.
2016. “Can Social Protection bring developmental states back to Africa? Findings from Zambia.” SASPEN Brief No. 7/2016.
2016. “Transformative social protection: findings from the Zambian child grant and farmer input support programmes.” The International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth One-Pager No. 338.
2013. “What accounts for opposition party strength? Exploring party-society linkages in Zambia and Ghana.” International Development working paper No. 141, London: LSE.
Ausgew?hlte Vortr?ge und Konferenzbeitr?ge: / Selected conference presentations and invited talks:
Social protection: aspirations and limitations of an expanding agenda. Paper presented with Stephen Devereux at the Centre for Social Protection Institute of Development Studies University of Sussex, Brighton, Sept. 2023.
Questioning the rurality of development: Meanings and visions for the African countryside. Paper presented with Kressen Thyen at the DVPW Section International Relations, Friedrichshafen, June 2023.
Distributing the Countryside: The Agrarian Question of the 21st century and the Contradictions of the Smallholder. Paper presented with Felix Anderl at the DVPW Section Political Economy, Berlin, Sept. 2022.
Food Policies as Social Protection: The absence of international agricultural policy and implications for IR. Paper presented with Klaus Schlichte and Roy Karadag at the British International Studies Association Annual Conference in Manchester, June 2022.
Social policy and austerity in 2022: protecting social protection. Presentation held at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge, April 2022.
Social Policy and State Formation: Some Insights from Zambia. Presentation held at the Social Policy in Africa Conference 2021, University of South Africa, Pretoria, Nov. 2021.
The State Formation Effects of Social Protection: Some Findings from Zambia. Presentation at the Annual Conference of the Southern African Social Protection Experts Network (SASPEN), Johannesburg, Oct. 2021.
Social Policy and State Formation: Comparative insights from the Social Cash Transfer and ‘FISP’ in Zambia. Paper presented at the 22nd Biennial Conference of the International Consortium for Social Development, University of Johannesburg, July 2021.
State Formation and Social Policy in Zambia. Invited talk at the Centre for Social Science Research, University of Cape Town, June 2021.
Knowing and unknowing the countryside – epistemological implications of rural social policy in Zambia. Invited talk at the Centre for Global Knowledge Studies (gloknos), Cambridge, June 2021.
Social Policy and Statehood in Zambia. Presentation in the qualitative social policy colloquium, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London, March 2019.
Can Social Protection be Transformative? Findings from Zambia. Presentation at the Annual Conference of the Southern African Social Protection Experts Network (SASPEN), Johannesburg, South Africa, Oct. 2015.
International Relations and Social Theory (English; MA, Summer 2021)
Introduction to Political Theory (German; BA, Summer 2021)
Rural Politics (German; BA, Winter 2020/21)
Introduction to International Relations (German; BA, Winter 2020/21)
Knowledge in Global Social Policy (English; BA, Summer 2020)
African Political Thought (English; BA, Summer 2020)
African States since Independence: Ups and Downs of Development Planning (English; BA, Winter 2019/20)
Food Security – History, Theory, Policy (English; BA, Winter 2019/20)
Social Policy in International Development (English; BA, Summer 2016)
Globalised Statehood and Politics in Africa (English; BA, Summer 2016)
Introduction to Political Science methods (German; BA, Winter 2013/14)
Guest lectures at the LSE, University of Zambia, and University of Botswana
Regular supervision of BA and MA theses; topics: African and international development; International Relations; Social Theory; agricultural and land policies.