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Welcome. I am an Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics in the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia where I am also a Faculty Affiliate with the Center for International Trade and Security and the African Studies Institute. During Fall 2022 I was a Visiting Scholar with the Elections, Violence, and Parties Project at the University of Amsterdam. Previously I was a Research Fellow in the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School (2021-2022).

 

I study political order and violence with a focus in Sub-Saharan Africa. My book project, Political Violence and Elections in Nigeria, explains when lethal election-related violence is likely to be selective or indiscriminate by paying close attention to the joint production of election violence by politicians and different groups. In other work, I study armed groups and their relationships with citizens and governments, election violence and political participation, community mobilization against electoral manipulation and violence, and democratic backsliding.

My research is forthcoming or has been published in different outlets, including African Affairs, International Security, Journal of Peace Research, Political Behavior, and World Development. I have also shared my research at Political Violence at a Glance and Africa at LSE. I earned my Ph.D. in Political Science from Brown University  in 2017 and am an alumna of the interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Development where I was a National Science Foundation-IGERT Doctoral Fellow.

For more information, please click on the links above. To get in touch with me, please email me at: megan.turnbull@uga.edu.