Jimmy D. Kandeh (M.A., Ph.D. Wisconsin-Madison) is a scholar and international development expert with over four decades of expertise in democracy and African affairs. He taught political science at the University of Richmond, Virginia, United States, between 1992-2021 where he retired as Full Professor.  He has written extensively on such topics as violence, insurgencies, peacebuilding, and the international political economy in Africa. In addition to many articles published in highly-rated avenues, he is the author of Coups from Below: Armed Subalterns and State Power in West Africa (New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2004). As an international development expert, he held several consultancy roles with the World Bank and USAID where he facilitated research in state-building and the extractive sector in Sierra Leone and Liberia.  He is currently working on two monographs, Construction of Ethnic Identities in Sierra Leone and Politics and Society in Contemporary Sierra Leone.