About

Lamin Keita is a postdoctoral fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He is working with political scientist Jaimie Bleck, a Kellogg faculty fellow, to investigate issues of the rapid decline of democracy in the interdisciplinary African Governance Innovation Collaborative, sponsored by the College of Arts and Letters.

Keita recently completed a doctorate in comparative politics and international relations at Northwestern University. His dissertation has garnered two renowned awards for his research in West Africa: the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, funded by the US State Department of Education, and the Social Science Research Council-International Dissertation Research Fellowship (SSRC-IDRF) award in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal. 

Keita’s research examines community violence and democratization in West Africa, exploring why some communities and states use violence while others with similar conditions adopt nonviolent resistance. Based on regional specialization in Africa and beyond, his dissertation 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 conflict and democratic decline.

Previously, Keita worked as a journalist with the disbanded BBC relay radio (Citizen FM) and newspaper (New Citizen) and as a daily observer and Gambia Radio and Television Services (GRTS) in The Gambia. During President Jammeh’s incumbency, he was forced to seek political asylum in the United States. He obtained a BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Master's degree from Northwestern University.