The South African Election and Development Policy

The Social Change Project at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University presented a lecture by Karol Boudreaux, Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center and Lead Researcher for Enterprise Africa!.  Ms. Boudreaux discussed the upcoming South African election, the key policy issues facing South Africa, and the election’s potential effect on economic growth and development. 

Ms. Boudreaux's Summary:

With the advent of a new political party, the Congress of the People (COPE), a breakaway group from the ruling African National Congress (ANC), the election will be the most significant since the end of Apartheid and one that will have a substantial impact on the future not just of South Africa but of the southern African region more broadly. The performance of current government will be analyzed, as will the election’s impact on African economic development. 

Karol Boudreaux is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center; lead researcher for Enterprise Africa!, a research project that is investigating, analyzing, and reporting on enterprise-based solutions to poverty in Africa; and a member of the Working Group on Property Rights of the U.N.'s Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor.  She also teaches in the Economics Department and in Public and International Affairs at George Mason University

Ms. Boudreaux's main areas of interest include property rights and development, human rights, and international law. The current focus of her research is contemporary Africa and the ways in which particular institutional arrangements have either helped or hindered human flourishing and economic development on the continent.

Before joining the Mercatus Center, Ms. Boudreaux was assistant dean at the George Mason University School of Law. Previously, she taught in the legal studies department at Clemson University and served as director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington-on-Hudson, NY.

Ms. Boudreaux earned her JD from the University of Virginia's School of Law and her BA from Rutgers University (Douglass College) and completed graduate work in history at the University of Georgia.