Mailing address
One Brattle Square 513
79 John F. Kennedy Street
Mailbox 134
Cambridge, MA, 02138
Jennifer Keister
Research Fellow, International Security Program
Contact:
Telephone: 617-496-2352
Fax: 617-496-0606
Email: jennifer_keister@hks.harvard.edu
Experience
Dr. Jennifer Keister is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Belfer Center's International Security Program. She holds a B.A. (summa cum laude) in Government from the College of William and Mary and a Ph.D. in Political Science from University of California, San Diego. Her research focuses on how rebel movements establish authority over civilian populations—why and how some groups provide public goods and build governance structures, while others engage in extortive behavior. Her work looks at micro-dynamics of conflict, studying the ways in which the rebel-civilian relationship comprise social, political, religious, and material exchanges in addition to acts of violence.
Keister's dissertation draws from theories of state origins and non-Westphalian patterns of hierarchy to examine how rebel groups balance their own preferences with the challenges of building domestic legitimacy and managing both domestic and international constituencies. She studies these phenomena in the context of the three faces of the Moro independence movement in Mindanao (in the south of the Philippines): the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG). She has undertaken extensive archival, interview, and survey research in conflict-affected areas of Mindanao since 2008.
Keister's broader research interests include the origins of state formation, the creation of governance structures and legitimacy by rebel groups, post-conflict transitions, and the micro-processes of intrastate conflict.
Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Smith Richard Foundation, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and the University of California's Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation.
