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Education

Ph.D. Yale University (2016)
M.A. Yale University (2011)
B.A. Amherst College (2001)

Areas of Specialization

• Africa
• Civil War
• Civil Society and Social Movements
• Human Rights and Humanitarianism
• International Relations and International Organization
• Security Studies

Research

Jason Stearns is a political scientist interested in dynamics of violence and other forms of social mobilization in Africa, with a particular focus on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This research has also led him to scrutinize the impact––or lack thereof––of UN peacekeeping, international advocacy, and humanitarian relief operations on armed conflict. His career has spanned the realms of public policy, advocacy, and academic research. He is the inaugural director of the School for International Studies' annual field school in Arusha, Tanzania. 

Since 2001, Jason has been focused on better understanding the factors contributing to armed conflict in the Congo. He has worked for HĂ©ritiers de la Justice, a Congolese human rights organization, the International Crisis Group, the Rift Valley Institute, and the United Nations peacekeeping mission. In 2008, he was coordinator on the United Nations Group of Experts on the DR Congo. In 2010, he published Dancing in the Glory of Monster: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (Public Affairs), a narrative history of the Congolese wars between 1996 and 2006. In 2022, he published The War That Doesn't Say Its Name: The Unending Conflict in the Congo (Princeton University).

In 2014, Jason founded the Congo Research Group, which has been based since then at New York University's Center on International Cooperation. CRG's mandate is to conduct investigative research into armed conflict in the Congo, to promote Congolese voices in debates around their country, and to render Congolese and foreign policy on the conflict more accountable and transparent. In 2022, Jason co-founded Ebuteli, a research institute based in Kinshasa, along with leading Congolese scholars and researchers. CRG and Ebuteli have published dozens of reports, including investigations into massacres in Beni territory and the Kasai region, an examination of the assets and investments of President Joseph Kabila's family, and a series of nationwide political opinion polls. Ebuteli manages two online trackers: the Kivu Security Tracker, which documents violence in the eastern Congo; and Talatala, which catalogues parliamentary voting and behavior.

Jason sees contentious politics––ranging from armed rebellions to youth movements––as closely tied to the broader social, economic, and political trends in society. He is currently researching how recent transformations in subsaharan African countries have changed the way its citizens mobilize. For example, he is interested in understanding how dramatic urbanization, the privatization of the state, the rise of China, and oscillation in foreign aid have affected the forms and patterns of contentious politics––both peaceful and violent––that we can see on the continent. Jason sees the role of ideology and culture as vital to these dynamics and is examining how the end of the Cold War has shifted how citizens articulate their vision of a just society. 

Jason has published numerous policy reports for the Congo Research Group, the Rift Valley Institute, and the International Crisis Group, as well as opinion and news articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post,  Financial Times, The Economist, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy. He is frequently interviewed by the BBC, Radio France International (RFI), Al Jazeera, and other major media outlets. 

Publications

BOOKS

The War that Doesn’t Say Its Name: The Unending Conflict in the Congo (Princeton University Press, 2022)

Stearns, Jason K. 2011. Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (New York, 2010)

ARTICLES

“The Congo’s Malaise.” Daedalus, forthcoming 2026. 

“Subnational ethnic conflict: The case of the African Great Lakes Region.” Journal of Modern African Studies, 1-25, 2025.

“Violent orders and coup-proofing: A new typology of wars in Africa.” African Security Review 1–23, 2024. 

"Involution and symbiosis: the self-perpetuating conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo." International Affairs 98.3, 873-891, 2022. 

"COVID-19 on the African continent," The Lancet Infectious Diseases 20, no. 12, 1368-1370, 2020 (with Chad Wells, Pascal Lutumba, and Alison P. Galvani).

“Kivu’s intractable security conundrum, revisited,” African Affairs, 1-13, 2018 (with Christoph Vogel).

“L’ancrage social des rébellions congolaises: Approche historique de la mobilisation des groupes armés en République démocratique du Congo,” Afrique Contemporaine, no. 265, 11-37, 2018.

“Causality and conflict: Tracing the origins of armed groups in the eastern Congo,” Peacebuilding, 2, no.2, 157-171, 2014.

“Rethinking the Kivus crisis: Armed Mobilization and the Logic of the Transitional Government,” Politique Africaine, 129 (1), 2013. 

BOOK CHAPTERS

 â€śPan-Africanism on the March: The Political Utopias of Social Movements.” Chapter in Mulugeta, Daniel (ed.) Pan-Africanism Today (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

“Protests captured? The paradox of popular mobilization in two African countries.” Chapter in Bjarnesen, Jesper and Anders Sjögren (eds.) Contested elections and street politics. Autocratization and protest coalitions in sub-Saharan Africa (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

“Mboka esi ekufa”: The violent order of the Congolese state." Chapter in Gondola, Didier, Katrien Pype, and Charles Tshimanga (eds). The Renaissance of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Leuven University Press, 2023).

"Conflict as an end in itself: Strategy and warmaking in the Democratic Republic of the Congo." Chapter in Brands, Hal (ed). The New Makers of Modern Strategy: From the Ancient World to the Digital Age. (Princeton University Press, 2023).

"The Democratic Republic of the Congo: An Elusive Peace, Chapter in Khadiagala." Chapter in Khadiagala, Gilbert (ed), War and Peace in Africa’s Great Lakes Region (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

"Repenser la crise au Kivu: Mobilisation armĂ©e et logique du gouvernement de transition," Chapter in Tull, Dennis and Pierre Englebert (eds). RĂ©publique dĂ©mocratique du Congo: Terrains disputes. (Karthala, 2013).

"Bad Karma: Accountability for Rwandan Crimes in the Congo," with Federico Borello. Chapter in Waldorf, Lars and Scott Straus (eds). Remaking Rwanda: State Building and Human Rights After Mass Violence. (University of Wisconsin Press, 2011).

"Laurent Nkunda and the National Congress for the Defence of the People." Chapter in Marysse, Stefaan and Filip Reyntjens (eds). Afrique des Grands Lacs, Annuaire 2007-8. (L’Harmattan, 2011).

JOURNALISM AND POLICY ARTICLES (selected)

"Could Africa’s Forever War Finally End?" Foreign Affairs, June 17, 2025 (with Joshua Walker, and Reagan Miviri).

“How Rwanda and Congo Can Forge a Lasting Peace.” Time, March 19, 2025 (with Fred Bauma).

“Rwanda’s Attack on Congo Could Plunge Africa Into War,” Foreign Policy, February 28, 2025 (with Kristof Titeca).

“This is our war, not some distant, irrational outbreak of violence in Africa,” Le Monde, February 9, 2025. 

“Rwanda’s troublemaking in DRC would be easy to stop.” Financial Times, January 26, 2025.

“La guerre des rĂ©cits.” Afrique XXI, August 20, 2024 (with Archie MacIntosh).

“The Forgotten War in Congo.” Foreign Affairs, July 26, 2024.

"Rebels without a Cause: The New Face of African Warfare," Foreign Affairs, 101: 143, 2022.

“A New Direction for U.S. Foreign Policy in Africa,” Dissent, Fall edition 2022 (with Zachariah Mampilly).

“An Imperfect Victory for Democracy in the Congo,” The New York Times, 11 January, 2019.