Peter VonDoepp is Professor and Chairperson in the of Department Political Science.  His research focuses on African politics, specifically examining judicial development, state-media relations, and democratic backsliding. He is author of Judicial Politics in New Democracies: Cases from Southern Africa (Lynne Rienner, 2009) and co-editor of The Fate of Africa's Democratic Experiments: Elites and Institutions (Indiana, 2005) and of the Routledge Handbook of Democratization in Africa (Routledge 2019).  His other published work appears in a variety of outlets, including Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, and Comparative Politics. His work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, Fulbright-Hays program, and Norwegian Research Council.