Michaela Collord

Contact

• workRoom C109 Law and Social Sciences
  University Park
  Nottingham
  NG7 2RD
  UK
• Michaela.Collord@nottingham.ac.uk

Biography

I joined Nottingham as an Assistant Professor in September 2021. Prior to this, I was a Junior Research Fellow in Politics at New College, University of Oxford. I also completed my PhD in politics at Oxford.

Expertise Summary

My research comprises three overlapping strands:

(1) The political economy of authoritarian rule and authoritarian political institutions (parties and legislatures)

(2) Authoritarian strategies for urban dominance, urban informal labour markets, labour organizing and cooperatives

(3) The history and politics of sub-Saharan Africa, particularly east Africa

My PhD and book (forthcoming) examine variation in ruling party cohesion and legislative assertiveness across Africa's dominant party regimes. Comparing Uganda and Tanzania with further reference to Kenya and Rwanda, I show how contrasting institutional outcomes result, in part, from differences in the distribution of power across economic and political elites. These elite power dynamics are, in turn, shaped by different trajectories of state-led capitalist development. I further examine the implications of a more assertive legislature, particularly regarding accountability, interest group representation, and distributive outcomes. This research combines descriptive statistics with a primarily qualitative, comparative historical approach.

My new project still focuses on dominant party regimes but recentres on the politics of authoritarian dominance in rapidly expanding cities. Focusing on Dar es Salaam and Kampala, the commercial capitals of Tanzania and Uganda respectively, it examines the collective action strategies of informal workers and how these interact with strategies of state and private sector actors seeking to manage, control, or accumulate via the informal economy. The primary sectoral focus is trade (market and street vendors) and transport (especially motorcycle-taxi drivers). This project sits at the intersection of the literatures on urban political economy, urban labour informality, and labour organising.

Alongside these projects, I have engaged in collaborative work on a range of related themes including urban political settlements (as part of the Dar es Salaam team within the African Cities Research Consortium) and the political economy of party competition and party system development.

I have conducted fieldwork in Uganda, Tanzania and Benin.

Teaching Summary

I provide teaching for the following undergraduate modules:

• African Politics (co-convenor)
• Intro to Comparative Politics
• Political Parties and Party Systems Around the World
• Politics Placement

Recent Publications

• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2024. Wealth, Power and authoritarian institutions: Comparing parties and parliaments in Tanzania and Uganda Oxford University Press. (In Press.)
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2023. Getting Ahead or Getting Exploited?: Here Is How We Can Make Bodaboda, Bajaj Driving in Dar Better The Chanzo. Available at: <https://thechanzo.com/2023/01/12/getting-ahead-or-getting-exploited-here-is-how-we-can-make-bodaboda-bajaj-driving-in-dar-better/>
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2023. Twenty-Five Years of Struggle: Transport Workers And the ‘Rights of the Wretched’ in Neoliberal Tanzania Available at: <https://thechanzo.com/2023/11/20/twenty-five-years-of-struggle-transport-workers-and-the-rights-of-the-wretched-in-neoliberal-tanzania/>
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2022. Wealth, power and institutional change in Tanzania’s Parliament African Affairs. 121(482), 1-28

• View all publications

I am interested in supervising PhD projects on a range of topics, including:

• The political economy of authoritarian rule, institutions (parties and legislatures), particularly with a focus on Africa
• Urban politics, urban labour informality, and labour organising, particularly with a focus on Africa

• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2024. Wealth, Power and authoritarian institutions: Comparing parties and parliaments in Tanzania and Uganda Oxford University Press. (In Press.)
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2023. Getting Ahead or Getting Exploited?: Here Is How We Can Make Bodaboda, Bajaj Driving in Dar Better The Chanzo. Available at: <https://thechanzo.com/2023/01/12/getting-ahead-or-getting-exploited-here-is-how-we-can-make-bodaboda-bajaj-driving-in-dar-better/>
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2023. Twenty-Five Years of Struggle: Transport Workers And the ‘Rights of the Wretched’ in Neoliberal Tanzania Available at: <https://thechanzo.com/2023/11/20/twenty-five-years-of-struggle-transport-workers-and-the-rights-of-the-wretched-in-neoliberal-tanzania/>
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2022. Wealth, power and institutional change in Tanzania’s Parliament African Affairs. 121(482), 1-28
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2022. ‘Nchi yetu ina uhuru, uhuru wa wachache’: Mazungumzo na wavujajasho wa Manzese na Jangwani Udadisi. Available at: <https://udadisi.com/nchi-yetu-ina-uhuru-uhuru-wa-wachache-mazungumzo-na-wavujajasho-wa-manzese-na-jangwani/>
• MICHAELA COLLORD, TOM GOODFELLOW and LEWIS ABEDI ASANTE, 2021. Uneven development, politics and governance in urban Africa: An analytical literature Review African Cities Research Consortium, University of Manchester. Available at: <https://www.african-cities.org/publications/working-paper-2/>
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2021. Pressuring MPs to act: Parliament, organized interests and policy-making in Uganda and Tanzania Democratization. 23(4), 723-741
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2021. Organized interests Africa is a Country. Available at: <https://africasacountry.com/2021/02/organized-interests>
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2020. Collective action, “liberation,” and Tanzania’s working poor Africa is a Country. Available at: <https://africasacountry.com/2020/04/collective-action-liberation-and-tanzanias-working-poor>
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2019. Opening salvo, or final shot?: Factional challenges to President Magufuli Presidential Power. Available at: <https://presidential-power.net/?p=9953>
• NIC CHEESEMAN, MICHAELA COLLORD and FILIP REYNTJENS, 2018. War and democracy: The legacy of conflict in East Africa Journal of Modern African Studies. 56(1), 31-61
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2018. The Legislature: Institutional strengthening in dominant-party states. In: NIC CHEESEMAN, ed., Institutions and Democracy in Africa: How the rules of the game shape political developments Cambridge University Press.
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2018. The “new” CCM, same as the old CCM?: Continuity and change in authoritarian parties Presidential Power. Available at: <https://presidential-power.net/?p=8655>
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2018. President Museveni and the politics of quick-fix taxation Presidential Power. Available at: <https://presidential-power.net/?p=8464>
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2017. Where President Magufuli’s political and economic strategy meet Presidential Power. Available at: <https://presidential-power.net/?p=7222>
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2016. From the electoral battleground to the parliamentary arena: Understanding intra-elite bargaining within Uganda’s National Resistance Movement Journal of Eastern African Studies. 10(4), 639-59
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2015. The ruling CCM party unites (for now) around a presidential nominee Presidential Power. Available at: <https://presidential-power.net/?p=3607>
• MICHAELA COLLORD, 2015. As corruption spreads under President Kikwete, Parliament quietly gains strength Presidential Power. Available at: <https://presidential-power.net/?p=2759>