Dr Innocent (Ib) Batsani-Ncube, BA (UNISA), Dip Ed (UZ), PGDip (NUST), MSc (Royal Holloway) PhD (SOAS)

Profile

Ib is an award-winning interdisciplinary Politics and International Relations scholar – trained in Africa and the UK. His research and teaching explore China’s role in the Global South, political dynamics in megacities, African regional organisations, and nuclear power politics.

His monograph, China and African Parliaments – based on his research that was awarded the 2022-2024 African Studies Association (ASA-UK) Best PhD Thesis Prize - was published in June 2025 by Oxford University Press. The book is the first to explore and explain the impact of China's expanding influence in African parliaments. It maps the political controversies surrounding the designing, making, utilisation and maintenance of three parliament buildings in Southern Africa that were financed and constructed by China.

Ib is currently working on two major research projects, the Africa Elections Study and the Africa nuclear energy programme. The former is funded by the Leverhulme Trust and draws on first-hand accounts of political and diplomatic elites, primary documents and ethnographic immersion, to trace, and interpret the history, contemporary practice, and political contestations of electoral integrity peer review mechanisms within African regional organisations. In the latter, Ib leads a ten- member interdisciplinary team from politics, law, nuclear physics and environmental studies that is mapping the politics of nuclear energy projects in Africa – the project aims to develop governance and technological tools to enhance sustainable nuclear safety in Africa.

Before joining QMUL, Ib was an Usawa Postdoctoral Research Fellow and a postgraduate module convener at SOAS. Ib is a recipient of the Chevening Scholarship Award which funded his MSc in Elections, Campaigns and Democracy at Royal Holloway, University of London. Prior to coming to academia, he was a leading figure in Zimbabwean civil society, where he founded a critical thinking and leadership development organisation – the Contemporary Affairs Foundation – managed United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF) supported civic projects and participated in the Zimbabwe national constitution making process.

Teaching

POL3002 China in the Global South

POL372 Africa in International Politics

Ib is launching a new postgraduate module in 26/27: Power and Place: Political Dynamics in Global South Megacities

Research

Research Interests:

Ib’s previous, current and pipeline research interests include research on China’s political engagement in the Global South, African states political behaviour in regional organisations, parliamentary spatial politics and parliamentary strengthening in Africa, the politics (and political history) of nuclear energy projects in Africa, political dynamics in Global South megacities and the politics of sport.

He has expertise on: China’s political engagement mechanisms in Africa; conducting fieldwork on and in state buildings; building civic organisations and conceptualising youth leadership development programmes.

Ib also has applied knowledge of the African civil and political space including the organisational behavior and leadership dynamics of African political parties, non-governmental organisations and membership/community owned sport clubs.

Examples of research funding:

Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant (2025-2028) – ‘Regional organisations and electoral integrity peer review mechanisms in Africa’ -    £399,045

QMUL IHSS Large Grant Seed-corn Funding Scheme (2025) - ‘Beyond best practice’: Developing sustainable nuclear safety governance for the nuclear sector in Africa’ - £5,000

SOAS, University of London Research grant (2023)- £5, 000

European Research Council funded African State Architecture | SOAS University of London (PhD Studentship) - £120,0000 ± £30,000

Publications

Monograph

Batsani-Ncube. I (2025) China and African Parliaments. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Peer-reviewed articles:

Batsani-Ncube, I. (2025). China’s ‘subtle ingratiation’ in the Global South: evidence from Zimbabwe. Third World Quarterly, 1-19.

Batsani-Ncube. I (2022) Purpose-built parliament buildings and the institutionalisation of parliament in Lesotho and Malawi. Parliamentary Affairs. (DOI: gsac017)

Batsani-Ncube. I (2022) Whose building: tracing the politics of the China funded parliament building in Lesotho. Journal of Southern African Studies 48(5) DOI 
10.1080/03057070.2022.2122385

Manful, K., Batsani-Ncube, I., & Gallagher, J. (2022). Invented modernisms: getting to grips with modernity in three African state buildings. Curator: The Museum Journal. 
https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12505

Batsani-Ncube. I (2021) Governing from the opposition? Tracing the impact of EFF’s ‘niche populist politics’ on ANC policy shifts. Africa Review, (13) 2, pp 199-216.

Book chapter:

Batsani-Ncube. I (2022) China’s ‘parliament building gift’ to Malawi: Exploring its rationale, tensions and asymmetrical gains. In Tomkinson, J; Mulugeta, D and Gallagher, J (eds): Architecture and Politics in Africa: making, living and imagining identities through buildings: London: James Currey. 

Book review:

Batsani-Ncube. I (2021) EXCELGATE: how Zimbabwe’s 2018 Presidential election was 
stolen, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, (40) 1, pp 149-151.

Documentary Film

Batsani-Ncube, I (2023) Zimbabwe Chinese government and constructed funded parliament building, the African State Architecture Project, SOAS, University of London

Public engagement (selected):

Interview - South African Broadcasting Corporation. ‘Zanu PF re-elects Mnangagwa as president for another five years’. 30/10/2022

Op-ed - The Zimbabwe Independent Newspaper. 'Do Zimbabweans prefer democracy?'. 15/12/2017

Op-ed - The Zimbabwe Independent Newspaper. 'Advice to the new President'. 01/12/2017

Supervision

I welcome research supervision in the following areas:

• China - Global South Relations
• African politics – especially but not limited to Southern African politics.
• The politics (and political history) of nuclear energy projects in Africa
• The politics of sport in Africa

Current PhD Student(s):

Bella Nininahazwe – Burundi and African regional organisations, Post-Arusha. 

Public Engagement

Ib has consulted for the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, served Research team member of the LSE Research project on China-Global South Voting Alignment in the UN, served as Executive Director of the Contemporary Affairs Foundation and managed United Nations Democracy Fund supported civic interventions in Zimbabwe.