Dr. Kaleb Demerew

Dr. Kal Demerew is a Non-Resident Scholar at the Center for Governance and Markets (University of Pittsburgh) and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Hope College. His research focuses on state-building, conflict, and the comparative political economy of development, particularly on institution formation and change in African states and external constraints on state agency and statecraft. He is the author of Contractualist State-building and Economic Freedom in Africa (Routledge, 2026) and Violence and State-building: Elite Contention and Institutional Change in Africa (forthcoming with SUNY Press). He was a co-editor of Nile Basin Politics (Edward Elgar, 2025) and his work has also appeared in the Journal of Institutional Economics, Nations and Nationalism, and Third World Quarterly. He has secured competitive grant awards from the Center for Governance and Markets, the Institute for Humane Studies, and Mercatus Center, where he most recently served as James Buchanan Fellow.