Rate My Professor Philip Nel

Professor Nel's research specializations encompass the foreign relations of emerging powers of the Global South, comparative politics of inequality, ethics of global governance, psychology of inequality tolerance and redistribution preferences, religion and irreligion and their implications for democracy, and the perspectives of regional leaders in Africa. He has edited and contributed to numerous books, including Regional Powers and Global Redistribution (2015), The Politics of Inequality in Developing Countries (2008), In Full Flight: South African Foreign Policy since 1994 (2006), Power, Wealth and Global Equity: An International Relations Textbook for Africa (revised editions 1999, 2002, 2006), Democratizing Foreign Policy? Lessons from South Africa (2004), and South Africa’s Multilateral Diplomacy and Global Change (2001). Recent peer-reviewed articles include Religion, Redistribution and Regimes in Asia and Africa, 2005–2022 (2026), Transnational Inequality and Geopolitics (2024), After Ian Taylor (2023), and The Limits of Mutual Benefit: A Neo-Mercantilist Perspective on China’s Economic Relations with Nigeria (2023). His scholarly impact is evidenced by supervising 30 PhD students, including 20 at Otago, and an A-grade in New Zealand's 2012 Performance-Based Research Funding assessment. Major awards include multiple Alexander von Humboldt Fellowships (1994, 2010, 2019), the first South African Japan Foundation Fellowship (1997), and DAAD Visiting Professorships at the University of Tübingen (2005, 2010).