Strategy, policy & media

I advise governments globally on leveraging AI & data to meet their top political priorities, whether in public services and public administration or putting together and implementing AI strategies, regulation, and investment roadmaps with The Tony Blair Institute.

Previously, I spent 7 years working with Dalberg Advisors, specializing in technology, data, and AI, public and social sector innovation, inclusive economic growth strategy, and investment attraction, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and other low- and middle-income countries. I’m also an angel investor with the Dakar Network Angels and chair the board of EPIC Africa, a Senegal- and Kenya-based non-profit that has built the African CSO platform, Africa’s largest platform for civil society organizations.

I have worked with a number of organizations on topics related to data for development, inclusive growth, democracy, election support and human rights, including freedom of speech and of the press. Feel free to reach out regarding these and other policy topics.

I have also observed elections in Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Armenia and served as an election official in Danish elections. Previously, I have served as vice-president of the Danish Foreign Policy Society Under 35 and worked on tax, business, housing and culture policy in the Parliament of Denmark and in the Danish think-tank CEPOS.

Mine and Peter Thisted Dinesen’s journal article in Political Geography on how immigrants participate and become socialized into new political contexts is out – Twitter thread by Peter here (May 2022)

I was featured on the Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s in-depth news analysis show DR2 Deadline to discuss authoritarian features of Donald Trump’s presidency after the storming of the Capitol and the future of democracy in the US based on my research, published in February 2017, suggesting that Trump would not leave office peacefully (January 2021)

I was featured on Denmark’s premier COVID-19 podcast on COVID-19 in Africa and what Denmark can learn from the African response (April 2020).

I was invited by TechBBQ to give a talk in Shenzhen on trust and trustworthiness as a Nordic tech advantage and on how to deploy it in lower-trust environments such as China and Sub-Saharan Africa (November 2019).

My article on why Denmark and Scandinavian societies have such high trust was one of Scandinavian Political Studies’ most downloaded recent articles (June 2019).

In Foreign Policy, Jacob Mchangama references our research on freedom of expression in discussing UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierres’s plans for a fast-track global plan of action on hate speech (February 2019).

The Cato Institute featured a piece by Jacob Mchangama based on our research on freedom of expression (August 2018).

Jacob Mchangama mentioned our research on freedom of expression in Cato Unbound and Jeremy Waldron responded (June 15th 2018).

Danish newspaper Information featured my article about the increasing concentration of extreme poverty in areas afflicted by fragility, conflict and violence and how we can best fight it (April 10th, 2018).

The Danish Broadcasting Corporation had me in the studio to talk about freedom of expression, fake news and social media based on my report (English language version here) with the Danish think-tank Justitia (January 13th, 2018).

I co-authored a report empirically examining the stated reasons for restricting freedom of expression (English language version here) with Jacob Mchangama, CEO of the think-tank Justitia, which was featured in DR P1 Eftermiddag and Jyllands-Posten (December 26th, 2017).

I wrote about teacher absenteeism and poor teacher skills in developing countries and the challenges they pose for development in Weekendavisen, a Danish weekly magazine (October 20, 2017).

I have a piece on regime change, political culture and Donald Trump in the new issue of the American Political Science Association’s Comparative Democratization Newsletter (July 1, 2017)

The Danish magazine Euroman profiled me in their July issue (June 15, 2017)

The Nordic Council of Ministers have featured research by Peter Thisted Dinesen and myself in a report on the extraordinarily high levels of trust in the Nordics and the future of Nordic trust (June 9, 2017)

The Danish Broadcasting Company’s P1 Orientering radio magazine featured me on The Gambia’s first post-Jammeh parliamentary elections (April 6, 2017).

In Politiken, a leading Danish newspaper, I examined democratic successes in West Africa and the fall of Yahya Jammeh in The Gambia [longer version in English on Medium here] (February 20, 2017).

I wrote about Donald Trump’s election and research on authoritarian politics and democratic breakdown on videnskab.dk, Denmark’s online science portal (February 7, 2017).

I was interviewed on Yahya Jammeh’s stand-off with ECOWAS in The Gambia by Politiken, TV2, DR P1 Morgen, Kristeligt Dagblad, TV2 NEWS, DR P1 Orientering, DR2 Dagen and Radio24Syv (January 18 to 23, 2017).

The Danish Broadcasting Company’s radio magazine P1 Orientering interviewed me on whether democracy is on the retreat globally  (August 8, 2016).

I gave a lecture about successful authoritarian states such as Singapore and China at Hans Egedes Kirke (March 6, 2016).

The Danish Broadcasting Company’s fact-checking TV programme DR Detektor asked me to discuss research on external support for democratization, human rights protection and trade policy (March 1, 2016).

Med Andre Ord, the student magazine at the Department of Political Science of the University of Copenhagen, asked me to discuss my dissertation research on political culture and democratization (December 23, 2015).

I held a one-day course on the use of geographic information systems for researchers and policy-makers (August 24, 2015).

I was interviewed on the post-Maidan Ukrainian parliamentary elections by DR Morgen, TV2 NEWS, Radio24Syv, P3 Nyhederne and P1 Morgen (October 21 to 27, 2014).

I served as a panel speaker on India’s 2014 General Elections at NIAS, the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (June 2, 2014).

I gave a lecture on opposition to democracy and anti-democratic ideologies at Center for Political Studies, Denmark’s largest think-tank (April 27, 2014).

Weekendavisen, Denmark’s leading intellectual weekly, featured a piece I wrote about microfinance (April 4, 2014).

I wrote about the wrong-headed notion that authoritarian regimes experience higher economic growth in Weekendavisen, Denmark’s leading intellectual weekly (February 28, 2014).

Selected coverage before 2014:

Jacob Mchangama and I wrote about tolerance and classical liberalism in Denmark’s leading intellectual journal Kritik (December 2012).

Henrik Gade Jensen and I wrote a chapter about Georg Brandes’s social liberalism in the anthology Friheden Flyver, edited by Dennis Nørmark (January 2010).

I edited the anthology 11 Konservative Tænkere alongside Henrik Gade Jensen (December 2009).