Antoinette Handley is Full Professor in the Department of Political Science, and Vice-Dean, Graduate Education in the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto. South African born, her research interests take her back regularly to the sub-continent for her research on state-business relations and the nature of the capitalist class in Africa.

Her first book on this subject, Business and the State in Africa: Economic Policymaking in the Neo-liberal Era, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2008. Her second book, Business and Social Crisis in Africa (CUP, 2020), considers how African economic elites respond to key moments of social and political crisis. Professor Handley’s new research seeks to develop a political economy account of the state formation process in Africa. Her teaching too focuses on African politics, comparative political economy, and the politics of development. 

Antoinette has been the recipient of a number of scholarships and research grants including the Rhodes (1993), Fulbright (1998 – she served as the Amy Biehl Fulbright Fellow in that year) and SSHRC (2007). Before joining academia, she served as the Latin America Research Fellow and then the Director of Studies at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) in Johannesburg, South Africa.