Our People
Martha C. Johnson
Associate Professor of Political Science
Kathryn P. Hannam Endowed Professor in American Studies
Education
BA, Smith College
MA, University of California, Berkeley
PhD, University of California, Berkeley
Professional Interests
Comparative politics, African politics, democratization, food politics, the politics of development
Bio
Martha Johnson studies African politics, with a focus on Francophone West Africa and an interest in women’s representation and the politics of foreign aid. She has conducted fieldwork in Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Benin, funded by the Fulbright program and the FAO. Most recently, Johnson interviewed nearly 100 women who ran for local office in Benin, which required her to travel around the country for three months in 2017. Her work has been published in several scholarly journals, including the American Journal of Political Science.