Salih Noor is a Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences Collegiate Division and a Harper-Schmidt Fellow in the Society of Fellows at The University of Chicago. He earned his PhD in Political Science from Northwestern University in 2023, with a graduate training in Comparative-Historical Social Sciences. Before joining Northwestern, Salih completed an M.A. in Political Science from Osnabrück University, Germany, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Asmara in Eritrea.
His interdisciplinary research interests sit in the intersection of political science, sociology, and comparative history, with a focus on democracy and political development, colonialism and long-run development, and institutions and institutional change. Salih’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in the International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Social Forces, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, CEU Political Science Journal, and Qualitative and Multi-Method Research.
Salih is currently completing his first book manuscript, “The Legacies of Liberation: Critical Juncture and Path-Dependent Political Development in Southern Africa,” which examines why twentieth-century liberation struggles against settler-colonial and white-minority rule in Southern Africa produced markedly different long-term legacies—notably political regimes, structural inequalities, and enduring national cleavages. The comparative-historical study covers five countries with a distinctive history of settler colonialism, racial domination, and violent decolonization: Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. The book argues that cross-national differences among these countries today can be traced to a critical juncture in the immediate aftermath of settler-colonial/minority rule, when victorious liberation actors assumed state power and embarked on distinct reform paths. By demonstrating how these early reform choices set the countries on divergent trajectories, the study offers a path-dependent explanation of political and sociological development in postcolonial Southern Africa. It contributes to comparative-historical scholarship on revolutions, regime development, and party systems, and historical institutionalist debates on institutions, path dependence, and institutional change.
He has received competitive grants and fellowships from the Center for International Social Science Research (CISSR) at The University of Chicago, the Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Harry Frank Guggenheim (HFG) Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), among others.
Website: https://salihnoor.com/about/
Selected Publications
Salih O. Noor (2024). Abductive Analysis in Qualitative and Multi-Method Political Science. Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 22 (Fall): 58-63.
Salih O. Noor (2024). Late Colonialism and Postcolonial Development in Africa: A Comparative-Historical Analysis of Former Italian Africa. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 66(2): 286-319. https://doi.org/10.1177/00207152241269033
Jean Clipperton, E Ochoa, Z. Ruan, J. Lee, P. Manzi, J. Zimmerman, I. Kwon, S. Gubitz, S. Noor, M Weylandt (2022). Empirical Methods in Political Science: An Introduction. Evanston: Northwestern University.
Salih O. Noor (2016). Third Wave Democratization in Post-Cold War Africa: The Rise of Illiberal Democracy in Comparative Perspective. CEU Political Science Journal 10 (1-2): 51-83
Courses
Global Society I: World Social Thought
Global Society II: Population
Global Society III: Research Practicum -- Race and State Making