Dr Christian von Soest is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg, Germany, and a Fritz Thyssen Fellow at the Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States. He is the author of The African State and the Capability to Raise Revenue (Nomos 2009).

Dr Michael Wahman is a Swedish Research Council Fellow at London School of Economics and Political Science’s Department of Government (PhD Lund University, 2012). His earlier research has appeared in journals such as Electoral Studies, Democratization, and Government and Opposition.