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About
Fall Open House
Join us for our last Fall Open Houses and experience our beautiful, riverfront campus firsthand. Learn more about Marist’s academic experience, the admissions process, and get an inside look at life as a Red Fox! You'll have the opportunity to hear directly from students, faculty, and staff about what makes the Marist Community so special. Register Below:
About
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Academics
Fall Open House
Join us for our last Fall Open Houses and experience our beautiful, riverfront campus firsthand. Learn more about Marist’s academic experience, the admissions process, and get an inside look at life as a Red Fox! You'll have the opportunity to hear directly from students, faculty, and staff about what makes the Marist Community so special. Register Below:
Academics
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Admission & Financial Aid
Fall Open House
Join us for our last Fall Open Houses and experience our beautiful, riverfront campus firsthand. Learn more about Marist’s academic experience, the admissions process, and get an inside look at life as a Red Fox! You'll have the opportunity to hear directly from students, faculty, and staff about what makes the Marist Community so special. Register Below:
Admission & Financial Aid
-
Student Life
Fall Open House
Join us for our last Fall Open Houses and experience our beautiful, riverfront campus firsthand. Learn more about Marist’s academic experience, the admissions process, and get an inside look at life as a Red Fox! You'll have the opportunity to hear directly from students, faculty, and staff about what makes the Marist Community so special. Register Below:
Student Life
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Dr. Luke Melchiorre
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Bio
Dr. Luke Melchiorre is a political scientist with extensive teaching and research experience in the Global South, particularly in Africa and Latin America. His work critically engages with democratization, populism, and the political economy of development, seeking to reshape core debates in comparative politics through sustained engagement with non-Western theories and perspectives.
Over the past decade, Luke has conducted in-depth fieldwork in Eastern Africa, which informs his research on democracy and its discontents. He brings this field-based expertise into the classroom, where he encourages students to interrogate global political dynamics through a critical and comparative lens.
Luke has taught a wide range of courses in comparative politics, international relations, development, and African Studies. His years of teaching in Latin America have shaped a pedagogical approach that foregrounds diverse intellectual traditions and political perspectives from the Global South.
Education
PhD, Political Science, University at Toronto, 2018
MA, Political Science, University of Toronto, 2010
Honors BA, Political Science and African Studies, University of Toronto, 2006
Research Interests / Areas of Focus
Democracy and Democratization, The Political Economy of Development, Populism, African Politics, Social Movements
Selected Publications
"Politics Unusual? Bobi Wine, People Power, and the ideology of popular opposition in Uganda", Democratization, (2025).
"Generational Populism and the Political Rise of Robert Kyagulanyi – aka Bobi Wine – in Uganda", Review of African Political Economy, 50 (176), (2023), pp. 212-233.
"The Vietnam War in Africa" in A. Sedlmeier (ed), Protest in the Vietnam Era (Palgrave Macmillan, London), (2022), pp. 325-362 (co-authored with Dan Hodgkinson)
"Youth, the Kenyan state, and a politics of contestation", Journal of Eastern African Studies, (2020), 14 (4), pp. 690-706.
Selected Presentations
"Critically Reapproaching Populisms: The Ideologies of Democracy Movements in Africa", The Uses and Abuses of Political Ideas in Africa, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK (co-authored with Dan Paget), 2025
"Politics Unusual? Bobi Wine, People Power, and the ideology of popular opposition in Museveni’s Uganda", Baraza Seminar Series, Center of African Studies (CAS), University of Florida, 2025
"Foreign Fronts: Vietnam Solidarity and the Move to the Left in Cold War Uganda, c. 1964-1970", Africans and War in Vietnam Conference, Oxford University (Co-authored with Adrian Browne), 2024
"'The policy is not the problem': neoliberal consensus and the politics of popular resistance in Museveni’s Uganda", Uganda's Neoliberalism at 40 Conference, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, 2023
Awards and Honors
John Fell Fund (JFF), University of Oxford, 2024
Norwegian Programme for Capacity Development in Higher Education and Research (NORHED-II) Researcher Exchange Program, 2022
Media Links
"Black November: remembering Uganda's massacre of the opposition three years on", The Conversation, 17 November 2023: https://theconversation.com/black-november-remembering-ugandas-massacre-of-the-opposition-three-years-on-217847
"Age of Agitation: African Politics and the Question of Youth", African Arguments, 10 March 2021. (with Alcinda Honwana and Dan Hodgkinson): https://africanarguments.org/2021/03/an-age-of-agitation-african-politics-global-activism-and-the-question-of-youth/
"The Generational Populism of Bobi Wine", 12 February 2021. Review of African Political Economy, https://roape.net/2021/02/12/the-generational-populism-of-bobi-wine/
"Bobi Wine has shaken up Ugandan politics: Here are four things worth knowing", The Conversation, 13 January 2021. https://theconversation.com/bobi-wine-has-shaken-up-ugandan-politics-four-things-worth-knowing-about-him-153205
"A Contested Legacy: Julius Nyerere and the 2020 Tanzanian Election", The Conversation, 21 September 2020. https://theconversation.com/a-contested-legacy-julius-nyerere-and-the-2020-tanzanian-election-146490
