Thabit Jacob

Thabit Jacob is a postdoctoral fellow at Roskilde University in Denmark. His research is broadly on political economy of development, with a focus on governance of extractive and energy resources. Current research explores renewed interest of the Tanzanian state in the extractive sector focusing on the role and prospects of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), questions relating to governance, political and institutional challenges, management of resource revenues, distribution of rents, environmental costs of the extractive sector and the struggles over access to land in extractive activities involving SOEs. Some of his work has been published in journals such as African Affairs, The Extractive Industries and Society, Energy Research & Social Science, The African Review and Land Use Policy among others.

Overall the research is positioned at the intersection of environment and development challenges with focus on, natural resource governance and the political economy of energy, natural resource extraction and climate change.

The current research broadly investigates coal and energy. Of particular interest are questions relating to governance and political challenges arising from recent coal boom In Tanzania with focus on the role of state-owned enterprises, state-business relations, management of resource revenues and distribution of rents.