Dr. Julia Gallagher

Biography

Julia works on African Politics Development, researching state democracy-building and the ways citizens’ understandings of the state are shaped by colonial legacies and international relationships. She has completed work on the ERC project African State Architecture and is set to publish a new book, State-Building: Architecture Authority Africa in 2026. Julia is the co-convenor of the Democracy Development Research Group. Previously, she worked at SOAS and Royal Holloway, University of London, and joined King’s College London in 2023. Julia has served as a specialist advisor for the House of Lords’ Inquiry into UK-Africa relations from 2019 to 2020 and has held visiting scholar positions at the University of Witwatersrand and the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study. Julia's research interests include African Politics Development, the relationships between state and society, and the aesthetic dimensions of political architecture. Her teaching focuses on postgraduate courses related to public policy in the Global South and foundations of development theory. Julia is open to supervising PhD students focused on African Politics Development. She is involved in critical scholarship and activism, exploring the contested relationship between democracy and development, especially concerning the Global South.

Research Interests