js.lewis@wsu.edu

I am an Assistant Professor at Washington State University’s School of Politics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs. I hold a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, where I studied under John McCauley and Mark Lichbach. I specialize in both Comparative Politics and International Relations, and I focus on conflict processes, antisemitism, and political psychology. I focus on social movements, trust-building in post-conflict regions, and African politics, and have worked and conducted research in Zimbabwe, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Africa, and Afghanistan. I also have a keen interest in examining the political origins of antisemitism in countries with large Jewish diasporas. I work in both French and English. I am on the editorial committees of the Journal of Peace Research as well as Political Psychology. I currently serve as the Deputy Chief of Party on Trust2Peace, a USAID-funded conflict prevention program in northern Ghana, alongside my colleague, John McCauley at the University of Maryland. This project runs for 5 years and is funded at $4.2M. I also serve as the Principal Investigator on a Department of Defense Minerva Initiative project examining three core questions related to social cohesion, misinformation, and the formation of groups in troubled democracies. This project will run for 5 years and is funded at $3.9M. My work has been published in the Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Political Behavior, Political Psychology, Political Geography, Social Movement Studies, Politics, Nations and Nationalism, Political Studies Review, and the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism. My research has been supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, USAID, the Department of Defense, the Anti-Defamation League, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and the Academic Engagement Network. My article in Political Studies Review was awarded the Best Article of 2021 by the journal’s editorial staff. I maintain one foot in the fields of policy and international development. I have worked as Program Manager with Management Systems International and Associates in Rural Development in Washington, DC, specializing in programs in democratic rule of law, natural resource management, and post-conflict stabilization in Africa and the Middle East. I have also helped to manage an Africa-oriented governance program at Global Integrity and served as a Research Fellow with the Center for Open Data Enterprise.

Nigeria, South Africa, Protest, Conflict and Violence, Identity, Democracy, Civil Society