Nnamdi Mbajekwe

Nnamdi Mbajekwe

Biography

Nnamdi Mbajekwe is a rising senior Political Science student at James Madison
University. He is working as an intern at MIT’s Political Science department as part of the
2026 MIT Summer Research Program (MSRP). Nnamdi is working on two projects this
summer, one on data from Afrobarometer, a public survey organization that does fieldwork in
Africa, and an independent project on how political attitudes inform the financial aid system
for college in the United States. Nnamdi has had a lifelong interest in history, politics, and
economics. While MSRP is his first research experience, he’s also held leadership positions
in two of his home institution’s clubs, studied abroad, and participated in several universitysponsored
events related to foreign service & law. After finishing his undergraduate studies,
he plans to either pursue a PhD in Political Science or a law degree to accommodate his wide
range of interests.

Comparing Methodological Similarities Between Afrobarometer and
Arab Barometer
Nnamdi Mbajekwe1, Ezra Mendel2, Maakwe Cumanzala3, Noah Nathan4
1Department of Political Science, James Madison University
2Department of International Relations, University of the Witwatersrand
3Afrobarometer
4Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Afrobarometer and Arab Barometer are two public survey organizations that conduct extensive
fieldwork in Africa and the Arab world, respectively. The two organizations are important to
the field of political science, because they help capture the lived experiences of people in places
that policies are being developed for and research is being conducted. The Afrobarometer,
however, was founded earlier, and often features more rounds of questioning and funding. It is
also considered a “gold standard” for mass-scale survey conducting of its kind, and its concept
has been applied to other regions of the world. So, while the Arab Barometer might have
different interests than the Afrobarometer, it can be important to see if the methodologies are
similar, such that a high-quality, standardized process can be applied all around the world. To
do this, we analyze the four countries that overlap between the Afrobarometer’s latest publicly
available round and Arab Barometer’s corresponding wave, and pair similar questions of shared
question categories together. From there, we see if the results for these paired questions are
similar enough, or if there are statistically significant discrepancies, which if exist, may suggest
differences in methodologies that might need resolving.