About Me

Greetings! My name is Lamin Keita. I am a doctoral degree (Ph.D.) student in Comparative Politics and International Relations (IR) at the Political Science Department of Judd A. and Marjorie Weinberg College of Arts and Science at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, in the United States. I also serve as an adjunct instructor at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. Previously, I was a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) and Social Science Research Council (SSRC)-International Dissertation Research Fellowship (SSRC-IDRF) Scholar Fellow in the West African Sahelian countries of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Senegal. At Northwestern, I served as a Teaching Assistant (TA). I was affiliated with the Comparative Politics Workshop, the Program of African Studies (as a student coordinator), and the International Relations Workshop (as a student participant). I study Comparative Politics and IR through the lenses of institutions and development, with a particular focus on violent conflict, terrorism, civil war, ethnic politics & conflict, international security, democratization, elections, social movements & protest, and human rights and law in the Middle East and North Africa in general and in West Africa in particular. Prior to enrolling in Northwestern University graduate school, I served as a journalist in West Africa, working with the BBC relay radio & newspaper in The Gambia (Citizen FM), but I was forced to seek political asylum in the United States. I subsequently enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, obtaining a BA in Political Science and a Master’s degree at Northwestern University.

Research Interests
I am a comparative political violence analyst and researcher whose work brings together comparative politics and IR studies in which projects explore what role institutions, religion, and development play on political change, settler colonial, and postcolonial states in Africa in particular, and other parts of the continent in general. My current dissertation project, “The Politics of Community Resilience to Armed Jihadism in West Africa,” investigates the processes of some communities’ use of violence to oppose armed religious extremist groups (jihadists) while other communities with similar conditions adopt nonviolent resistance. Based on regional specialization in Africa and beyond, my research develops an empirical and theoretical basis for analyzing varied state-societal actors’ relations in identifying and sharing information for counterinsurgency—that also informs policymakers concerned with supporting indigenous ways to manage violent conflict.

Violence and Dissent: Mechanism to Control Divergent Opinions