Jaimie Bleck is the Bernard L. and Bertha F. Cohen Chair and Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. Bleck’s research interests include citizenship, democratization, social capital and civil society in Africa, with a focus on Mali. She is the author of two books: Education and Empowered Citizenship (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015) and Electoral Politics in Africa Since 1990: Continuity and Change with Nicolas van de Walle (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Her articles have been published or are forthcoming in the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Perspectives on Politics, Democratization, Comparative Political Studies, African Affairs, World Development, and the Journal of Modern African Studies. Her current book project draws on 18 months of fieldwork to explore the impact of tea-drinking groups on social capital and democratic society in Mali. She is a co-PI of the African Governance Innovations Lab (AGIL) along with Bernard Forjwuor and Lamin Keita at the University of Notre Dame. She previously spent 2022-2023 as a Fulbright Fellow at the Jesuit University of Abidjan where she taught research methods. Her research has been funded by the US Agency for International Development, the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies.
Jaimie Bleck
Professor
Bernard L. and Bertha F. Cohen Chair
BA, University of Chicago
PhD and MA, Cornell University
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Research Areas
Additional Interests
- Citizenship
- Civil Society
- Democratization
- Social Capital
- Political Islam in the Sahel
- Malian Politics
Research Statement
Biography
Bleck is originally from Hunterdon County, NJ and a proud graduate of Voorhees High School. Before graduate school, she worked for Winrock International on the Ambassadors' Girls Scholarship Program. Prior to joining Lehigh University, she was an Assistant (2011-2018) and Associate Professor (2018-2025) at the University of Notre Dame. She currently lives in Bethlehem with her husband and two sons.
Scholarship
Bleck's book manuscript, with Jacop Bonan, Philippe LeMay-Boucher, and Bassirou Sarr explores the role of informal civil society associations on youth resilience, social trust and trustworthiness, and democratic citizenship in Mali. Bleck, along with Bernard Forjwuor, Erin McDonnell, and Lamin Keita, is co-editing an interdisciplinary volume on African Governance Innovations. Bleck is part of a larger team including PIs from University of Fort Hare, South Africa (Muncinga Simatele and Forget Kapingura) as well as University of Bath, UK (James Copestake and Aurelie Charles) that is exploring drivers of variation in small business success in two South African townships. This project is funded by an NSF Trans-Atlantic Platform. She also has an ongoing project looking at local leaders' perceptions of the Malian crises and responses with collaborators at IFPRI (Katrina Kosec, Jordan Kyle, and Lucia Carrillo), Jessica Gottlieb (University of Houston), and Moumouni Soumano (University of Bamako).
Recent publications
2025. "State Capacity and Accountability in Low-Income States." Co-authored with Nicolas van de Walle. In Global Challenges to Democracy: Comparative Perspectives on Backsliding, Autocracy, and Resilience. Eds. Valerie Bunce, Tom Pepinsky, Rachel Riedl, and Kenneth Roberts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2024. "Drinking Tea with the Neighbors: Informal Clubs, General Trust and Trustworthiness in Mali." With Jacopo Bonan, Philippe LeMay-Boucher, and Bassirou Sarr. American Political Science Review 118 (2): 744-763.
"Can Student Body Diversity Foster Interethnic Trust, Tolerance, and National Identification Prioritization? The Role of Friendship in Kenya" co-authored with Robert Dowd, Danice Guzman, Jackie Oluoch Aridi and John Mugo. Forthcoming. British Journal of Political Science
Teaching
"How does Africa Affect the World (Fall 2025)"
"Social Capital: The Power of Associational Life" (Spring 2026)
"Informality, Social Capital, and Small Business Growth: Exploring Business Flourishing in South African Townships" (Spring 2026)