SEMINARS
23 April 2025: 13:00 – 14:15
Building National Security Capability: the case of counter-terrorism covert intelligence
Speaker: David Africa
Bio: David Africa is the author of Lives on the Line, an insider account of the six-year intelligence operation against the organization People against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad). He grew up in Manenberg, where he became involved in radical student politics in 1985, and subsequently the ANC underground and Umkhonto we Sizwe.
In April 1995 he joined the police Crime Intelligence division, where he worked on counter-terrorism intelligence, serving as operational coordinator in one of the most successful intelligence operations in post-Apartheid South Africa. David has lectured in terrorism and security studies at the Marshall Center for Security
Studies in Germany and the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. He headed the UN security analysis unit in Iraq and advised the OSCE on counter-terrorism strategy. In 2007 David co-founded The African Centre for Security and Intelligence Praxis (ACSIP), a progressive intelligence and geopolitics think tank, where he worked on building intelligence capability on the African continent. He remains a founding associate of ACSIP. David currently works as the Programme Lead, Strategic Intelligence at Third Generation Environmentalism (E3G), one of the world’s leading climate politics think tanks. He published a chapter in “The Ideological War on Terror”, Routledge, 2007, and has written for South African and international media on politics and national security.
16 April 2025: 13:00 – 14:15
The Self-Deception Trap: Exploring the Economic Dimensions of Charity Dependency within Africa-Europe Relations
Speaker: Prof. Carlos Lopes
Bio: Professor Carlos Lopes is based at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, housed at the University of Cape Town, He is also an Affiliate Professor at Sciences Po, Paris, a Foundation Fellow of the International Science Council, an ODI Senior Visiting Fellow, and a Chatham House Associate Fellow. In 2017, and again in 2022, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford. Carlos also belongs to the boards of about a dozen institutions. He has held several leadership positions across the United Nations system, including Policy Director for Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa. Carlos was a member of the African Union Reform team and was designated in 2018 as the AU High Representative for Partnerships with Europe. In addition, he has served on several global commissions and has several awards to his name. To add to the list of his achievements, Carlos is a widely published author, with over 20 edited or authored books and featured articles in mainstream media.
26 March 2025: 13:00 – 14:15
BOOK LAUNCH: Election 2024 South Africa- Countdown to Coalition
Speakers: Prof. Collettte Schulz-Herzenberg and Prof. Roger Southall
Bio: Prof. Collette Schulz-Herzenberg is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Stellenbosch University. As a National Research Foundation rated researcher, Collette specializes in political behavior and public opinion research and has contributed to the surging body of scholarship on South African electoral politics. Collette is co-editor on several book volumes on South African elections and has published numerous peer-reviewed academic journal articles, peer-reviewed book chapters, and policy and technical papers.
Prof. Roger Southall was Professor of Political Studies at Rhodes 1990-2001 and was later Professor of Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand. His most recent books were ‘The New Black Middle Class in South Africa’, ‘Whites and Democracy in South Africa’ (2022) and ‘Smuts and Mandela: The Men Who Made South Africa. Other than that, he walks dogs.
5 March 2025: 13:00 – 14:15
Who will rule SA in 2025: the GNU, Trump, and new leaders
Speaker: Adriaan Basson
Bio: Adriaan Basson is editor-in-chief of News24 and the Author of five books on corruption and current affairs. He is the recipient of multiple awards for investigative journalism, including the CNN African Journalist of the Year for news and the Taco Kuiper award. Having started his career at Beeld in 2003, Basson worked as an investigative journalist on the Mail & Guardian, where he was a founding member of amaBhungane, before moving to City Press as assistant editor. In 2013, he became editor of Beeld and in 2016 was appointed editor-in-chief of News24. His books include Zuma Exposed (2012) and Who Will Rule South Africa? (2023). Basson is a fellow of the African Leadership Initiative.
26 February 2025: 13:00 – 14:15
FIFTH JICA CHAIR LECTURE- The Relevance of Human Security in a Polarising World: Asia, Africa and Beyond
Speakers: Prof. Yoichi Mine and Dr Guy Lamb
Bio: Prof. Yoichi Mine is an Executive Director at Jica Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development.
Dr Guy Lamb is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Stellenbosch University.
16 February 2025: 13:00 – 14:15
Why should we be studying migration governance in Africa?
Speaker: Prof. Alan Hirsch
Bio: Prof. Alan Hirsch is a Senior Research Fellow at the New South Institute—directing the research program: Migration Governance Reform in Africa. Also, Professorial Research Associate at SOAS and Emeritus Professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, UCT. Founding director of the latter. He managed economic policy in the South African Presidency 2002-2012, represented Presidents in G20 negotiations, and co-chaired the G20 Development Working Group. He served on President Ramaphosa’s Economic Advisory Council since 2019 and on Minister Godongwana’s G20 Africa Panel in 2025. Most of his research before 2019 was on the political economy of South and Southern Africa’s economic development. Since 2019 he has mostly worked on migration governance reform in Africa. Publications include Season of Hope – Economic Reform under Mandela and Mbeki, The Oxford Companion to South African Economics, South Africa: When Strong Institutions and Massive Inequalities Collide, and working papers, chapters, and articles on South African economic and political economy issues and migration governance in Africa. His current research program is available at https://nsi.org.za/projects/migration-governance-reform/
16 October 2024: 13:00 – 14:15
(South) Africa and China – What kind of Relationship?
Speaker:
Dr Sven Grimm
Bio: Dr Sven Grimm is Head of Department on Knowledge Cooperation and Training at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability in Bonn (IDOS), Germany, and Extraordinary Professor of Political Science at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
11 October 2024: 09:00 – 10:00
Afro-Asian Engagements via Summit Diplomacy From TICAD and FOCAC to IAFS and IAF
Speaker:
Prof. István Tarrósy, University of Pecs, Hungary
Bio: István Tarrósy is Full Professor of Political Science at the Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Pecs (UP), Hungary, and Visiting Professor at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. He also directs the Hungarian Africa Research Center and is head of the Doctoral Program in International Politics at UP. He was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Center for African Studies (CAS) of the University of Florida in 2013-14. He is member of the China–Africa Working Group at CAS and Courtesy Affiliate Professor at the Center for Arts, Migration and Entrepreneurship (CAME). He is co-convenor of the Collaborative Research Group ‘Africa in the World’ of AEGIS African Studies in Europe. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Hungarian Journal of African Studies (Afrika Tanulmanyok).
9 October 2024: 13:00 – 14:15
Between East and West: Hungarian Political Culture in a Historical Perspective and the Changing Context of Foreign Policy Pragmatism
Speaker:
Prof. István Tarrósy, University of Pecs, Hungary
Bio: MIstván Tarrósy is Full Professor of Political Science at the Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Pecs (UP), Hungary, and Visiting Professor at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. He also directs the Hungarian Africa Research Center and is head of the Doctoral Program in International Politics at UP. He was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Center for African Studies (CAS) of the University of Florida in 2013-14. He is member of the China–Africa Working Group at CAS and Courtesy Affiliate Professor at the Center for Arts, Migration and Entrepreneurship (CAME). He is co-convenor of the Collaborative Research Group ‘Africa in the World’ of AEGIS African Studies in Europe. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Hungarian Journal of African Studies (Afrika Tanulmanyok).
2 October 2024: 13:00 – 14:15
Greening Industrial Policy: Lessons for South Africa
Speaker:
Dr Michael Hector, an economist at Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) in Pretoria, holds a PhD in Political Science from Stellenbosch University
Bio: Dr Michael Hector, an economist at Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) in Pretoria, holds a PhD in Political Science from Stellenbosch University, where he focused on environmental governance in South Africa. His work primarily addresses sustainable development-related issues, with recent projects examining the manufacturing sector, particularly food processing, and the role of small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) in the green economy. Dr Hector’s expertise also includes advancing green industrial policy in South Africa, focusing on how the country can respond to the international shift towards low-carbon economies.
25 September 2024: 13:00 – 14:15
Analysis of Global Trends, Determinants, and Elements of Digital Foreign Policy in Africa
Speakers:
Mmakoena Mpshane-Nkosi-PhD candidate at the University of Johannesburg.
Mmakoena Mpshane-Nkosi is a PhD candidate at the University of Johannesburg. She holds an MA in Politics, with her MA, entitled 4IR and the Emergence of Digital Foreign Policy: A Global Comparative Study, obtained from UJ. Mmakoena is an NIHSS-SAHUDA 2021/2022 Masters Grant Recipient and a top management administrator at the University of the Free State.
19 September 2024: 12:15 – 13.45
The Future of Disarmament, Security & Peacebuilding: Insights from African & Asian Contexts
Speakers:
Prof. Lindy Heinecken (Deputy Dean: Research), Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, Stellenbosch University
Prof. Miriam Coronel Ferrer (former chair of high-level Philippine mediation panel & Co-founder of the Southeast Asian Women Peace Mediators)
Dr Guy Lamb (Department of Political Science, Stellenbosch University)
Abstract:
In recent years, global conflict and peacebuilding landscapes have undergone profound changes. In 2023, the number of conflicts reached a record high level, peace agreements became more difficult to achieve, the number of armed actors have proliferated, and there is considerable pushback against UN peacebuilding and peacekeeping missions in certain contexts. In the New Agenda for Peace, UN Secretary-General António Guterres argued that “Member States should commit to reducing the human cost of weapons by moving away from overly securitized and militarized approaches to peace, reducing military spending, and enacting measures to foster human-centered disarmament.” Against this backdrop, The Future of Disarmament, Security and Peacebuilding seminar will discuss how peacebuilding and peacekeeping can adapt to these changes. The speakers will also discuss the role of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) programs in fostering peace, bringing in comparative insights from Asia and Africa. The discussion will address the key findings of the Norwegian Research Council-funded DISARM project and brings together academic and practitioner experts from the Philippines, South Africa, and Norway.
18 September 2024: 13:00 – 14h15
Peacebuilding in Africa today: Challenges and Opportunities
Speakers:
Dr Julia Palik (Senior Researcher) and Dr Nicholas Marsh (Senior Researcher), Peace Research Institute Oslo
Abstract:
This seminar will explore the complex nature of conflicts across the continent, and how conflict prevention, mediation, management, and post-conflict reconstruction practices can be better tailored to respond to today’s challenges to peace in Africa.
21 August 2024 @ 12:30-13:4
Speakers:
Professor Max Waltman-Current Fellow at STIAS, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Halmstad University, Sweden
Legal Prostitution: A Crime Against Humanity?
Abstract:
Despite extensive social science research documenting the coercion and damage attendant and endemic to the sex industry and decades of legal debate on approaches to this problem, no effective legal challenges have resulted. Countries following the Swedish (now “Nordic/Equality”) prostitution model law, which penalizes buyers and third parties while supporting prostituted persons to escape, have decreased prostitution’s incidence, while countries in which prostitution is legalized have seen trafficking and other violative abuses metastasize. Empirical evidence shows that legal prostitution exponentially increases “widespread” and “systematic attacks” against prostituted persons, including “rape, enforced prostitution, human trafficking, sexual slavery,” and other atrocities enumerated under international law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Close case readings focusing on the ICC support the theory that legal prostitution be recognized as a crime against humanity.
Read More
31 July 2024 @ 12:30-13:45
Speakers:
Chandre Bezuidenhout: Embedded Intelligence Manager
Barend Botes: Watch Operations Manager
Muamr Mollajee: Intelligence Analyst
Alexandra Steenekamp: Associate Consultant
Charlize White: Embedded Intelligence Manager
CORPORATE INTELLIGENCE CAREER PATHS REFCLECTIONS FROM CRISIS 24
26 July 2024 @ 12:30-13:45
Speaker:
Professor Marek Wroblewski
Head of Department of International Economic Relations,(Institute of International and Security Studies, University of Wroclaw, Poland) and permanent representative of Poland to the World Trade Organization in Geneve (Ministry of Development and Technology)
TWENTY YEARS OF POLAND IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: Economic achievements, challenges and prospects
7 May 2024
PREMIER DEBATE
Hosted by The Political Science Department in collaboration with the Stellenbosch University Museum in the run-up to the 2024 National and Provincial Election.
24 April 2024
Speaker:
Prof. Andrzej Polus
Ph.D., prof. Andrzej Polus, works as a professor at the Institute of International Studies, University of Wroclaw. He is the former president of the Polish Center for African Studies.
EU – Africa relations. Beyond the rhetoric of “the partnership of the equal
17 April 2024
Speaker:
Prof. Janis Van der Westhuizen
Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, Stellenbosch University.
Huawei or the American Way? Why Brazil and South Africa did not securitize 5G
10 April 2024
Speaker:
Daniela Ellerbeck
Manager Constitutional Programmes at FW de Klerk Foundation.
The FW de Klerk Foundation’s Human
Rights Report Card 2023. The Report
Card assesses the degree to which rights
and freedoms in the Bill of Rights were
enjoyed in practice during 2023.
27 March 2024 @ 13:15-14:30
Speaker:
Professor Ingrid Schneider
A Professor of Political Science, Department of Informatics, Universitat Hamburg, Germany.
Digital Platform Regulation and Geopolitics- Comparing perspectives on South Africa and Europe.
13 March 2024 @ 13:15-14:30
Speakers:
Dr Manfredi Valeriani
A Post-Doctoral Researcher at Luiss University and Academic-teaching Political Risk Analysis, International Politics and Businesses.
Carilina Polito
A PhD Researcher at LUISS University who focus on the (geo)politics of surveillance technologies, with special reference to the supply of biometric technologies to Africa.
1st Topic:
Co- Governance, Food and Communities: Investigating the role of Agri-based solutions in community building in Cape Town and Rome.
2nd Topic:
(Geo) Politics of Biometric Technologies- The Making of Datafield African Borders and Citizens.
11 March 2024 @ 14:00-16:00
SPECIAL SEMINAR
SOUTH AFRICAN INSIGHTS ON UKRAINE’S PATH TO PEACE:REGIONAL SECURITY, NUCLEAR SAFETY AND HUMAN RIGHT PERSPECTIVES
PROGRAMME
Speakers:
Prof. Tim Murithi (IJR)
Dr Maksyn Yakovlyev (NaUKMA)
TOPIC: REGIONAL SECURITY ARCHITECTURE
Speakers:
Oleana Lapenko (Dixi Group)
Isabel Bossman(SAIIA)
TOPIC: NUCLEAR SAFETY
Speakers:
Dr Elvis Fokala (UP Centre for Human Rights)
Oleksandra Ramantsova (Centre for Civil Liberties)
TOPIC:FORCEFULL DEPORTATION OF CHILDREN
21 February 2024 @ 13:15-14:30
Speaker:
Professor Jo-Ansie Van Wyk
Research Professor, Department Political Science at University of South Africa(UNISA), Pretoria
Nuclear Necropolitics in South Africa
18 October 2023 @ 12:15-13:30
Speakers:
David Ansara
Chief Executive Officer of the Free Market Foundation
Mark Oppenheimer
Practicing advocate and member of the Johannesburg Bar in South Africa
Who will watch the watchmen?
11 October 2023 @ 12:00-14:00
Speakers:
Mr, Saif Islam (Associate, Strategic Intelligence),
Mr. Dylan Williams (Senior Researcher, Monitoring)
and
Dr. Vaughn Maurel (Associate, Corporate Intelligence).
Exploring risk and Intelligence- Join our Corporate Intelligence and Risk Experts as we explain the Investigations Industry.
4 October 2023 @ 12:15-13:30
Credo Speakers:
Dr. Scott Timcke
Senior Research Associate at Research ICT Africa
Mr. Hanani Hlomani
Researcher at Research ICT Africa
and
Mrs. Zara Schroeder
Researcher at Research ICT Africa
Decoding the Ballot: AI is Reshaping Democracy on the African Continent
20 September 2023 @ 12:15-13:30
Speakers: Prof Michael Williams
University Research Chair in Global Political Thought at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, Canada.
and
Prof. Rita Abrahamsen,
Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, Canada
The World of the Right: Radical Conservatism and International Order
30 August 2023 @ 12:15-13:30
Speaker: Omomayowa Abati,
Final-year doctoral student in the Department of Political Science, Stellenbosch University
Is Reducing Candidacy Ages Enough? #NotTooYoungToRun and Youth Parliamentary Representation in Nigeria’s National and Subnational Legislature
23 August 2023 @ 12:15-13:30
Speaker: Dr. Salih O. Noor,
Ph.D finished at Northwest University in July 2023, will join The University of Chicago in September as a Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Social division, Harper-Schmidt Fellow
The Legacies of Radical, Liberal, and Stalled Liberal Reforms in Southern Africa
16 August 2023 @ 12:15-13:30
Speaker: Prof. Jan Erk,
African Institute for Research in Economics and Social Sciences, University Mohammed VI Polytechnique (UMGP), Morocco
Looking Back at Africa’s Constitutional Past, Learning from Mistakes, and Reflecting on the Future
2 August 2023 @ 12:15-13:30
Speaker: Dr. Mandira Bagwandeen,
Senior Research Fellow, Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, UCT
The China Factor in Africa’s Pursuit of Digital Sovereignty
26 July 2023 @ 12:15-13:30
Speaker: Anton Harber,
Adjunct Professor & Caxton Chair:
Department of Journalism, Wits University
How offensive can we be? The Hate Speech Bill and freedom of speech
24 July 2023 @ 12:15-13:30
Speaker: Prof. James L. Gibson
Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government, Department of Political Science, Washington University in St. Louis.
Democracy’s Destruction?
The 2020 Election, Trump’s Insurrection, and the Strength of America’s Political Institutions
26 April 2023 @ 12:15-13:30
Speaker: Dr Victoria Reinhardt
Senior lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Leipzig
Neighbourhood Policies of Regional Powers Competing Spacial Formats
19 April 2023 @ 12:15-13:30
Speaker: Dr Michael Hector
Junior Lecturer, Political Science
Pathways to Sustainable Development Ecological Modernisation in Africa
12 April 2023 @ 12:15-13:30
Speaker: Simon Freemantle, Senior Political Economist, Standard Bank
The state of government-business relations in SA, and the implications for the political economy outlook
29 March 2023 @ 12:15-13:30
Speaker: Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy at University of Birmingham, UK
How ideas and ideologies shape African politics – and why we can’t understand it without them
22 March 2023 @ 12:15-13:30
Speaker: Dr Tim Zajontz, International Relations, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany
China in Africa and the geopolitics of competing connectivity initiatives in Africa
15 March 2023 @ 12:15-13:30
Speaker: Anye Nyamnjoh, Senior Research Officer, University of Cape Town
Making Universities more African: Decolonisation as a Politics of Belonging
22 February 2023 @ 12:15-13:30
Speaker: Ntina Reiersgord
Journey to Monitoring & Evaluation as Career and Lessons Learned
15 February 2023 @ 12:15-13:30
Speaker: Prof Silviu Rogobete, West University Timisoara, Romania
Instrumentalised Religion and Current Global Affairs: The war in Ukraine
2019 National Election