Jennifer Jefferis

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Dr. Jennifer Jefferis is a Teaching Professor and the Director of Curriculum for the Security Studies Program, in the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

She has a Ph.D. in Political Science from Boston University. Her academic research focuses on religion and political violence, and she is the author of three books on this topic: Hamas: Terrorism, Governance, and its Future in the Region (Praeger 2016), Religion and Political Violence: Sacred Protest in the Modern World (Routledge 2009), and Armed for Life: Anti-Abortion Politics in the United States (Praeger 2011), as well as several articles on religion and violence.

Jefferis also serves as an expert consultant for the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. In this capacity, she develops security related programs for government and civilian leaders in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, the Palestinian Territories, and Israel, among other places. She is a frequent guest speaker in both domestic and international defense education programs.

She was previously an associate professor of Security Studies at the National Defense College of the United Arab Emirates, and she served as the Associate Dean of Academics at the College of International Security Affairs in Washington D.C. She was a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Education
BA Grove City College
PhD. Boston University

Countries of Expertise
Israel, Palestine; Lebanon; Jordan; Egypt

Issues of Expertise
Defense Education and Curriculum Development; US Middle East Policy; Religion and Political Violence; Countering Violent Extremism

The Latest from Jennifer Jefferis

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Israel’s fight to define the right matters for US security

The Israeli government is in the midst of a fight to define what it means to be on the “right” politically in Israel, and this has important implications for U.S. security policy in the Middle East. The United States’ support for Israel is a defining pillar in its Middle East policy, and the decisions made by this fragile Israeli government could have ramifications that affect the security landscape of the entire region. There are small policy shifts the U.S. can make now to lessen the security impacts of those changes.

Photo by Fadel Itani/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Back to basics? Lebanon’s critical role in Biden’s Middle East

In the past several months, Biden administration officials have been pushing back against an encroaching narrative that the United States has abandoned the Middle East. But deepening partnerships built on a shared threat are not enough to assuage the concerns of all valuable allies in the region given the increasing perceptions of U.S. unreliability. To address these concerns, the U.S. needs to identify positive nexuses across policy priorities as well. One ripe option in this frame is Lebanon, where the United States has a reliable and long-standing partner in the Lebanese Armed Forces.

Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images

Defense Rapid Reaction: US strategic competition

The Department of Defense’s new overarching principle, U.S. strategic competition, will likely replace great power competition in the next National Defense Strategy, set to be released in 2022. In the latest installment of the Defense Rapid Reaction series, experts from MEI’s Defense & Security Program weigh in with their thoughts on what strategic competition means for the U.S. and how it should go about implementing it in practice.