Kelechi Amakoh

I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at Michigan State University and a Visiting Researcher at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS). I also serve as a 2025–2026 Contributing Fellow with Good Authority, where I help make political science research more accessible through public-facing commentary. I have also participated in prestigious research and training programs, including the University of Oxford's  Media Policy Summer Institute, New York University’s Faculty First-Look, and the Harvard University's FAS Research and Academic Exchange.

My work bridges political communication, ethnic politics, and democratic resilience, with a focus on how political campaigns shape group relations and democratic attitudes in multiethnic societies. I focus especially on negative campaigning, identity-based appeals, and their consequences for polarization and political behavior. Through a combination of large-scale content analysis, survey experiments, and elite interviews, my dissertation explores the conditions under which campaign rhetoric can erode or reinforce democratic resilience. While grounded in the Nigerian context, my work speaks to broader debates about democratic backsliding and group conflict in newer democracies across Africa and beyond.

My research has been generously supported by numerous fellowships and grants, including the Richard A. Horovitz Fund for Professional Development, Center for Gender in Global Context (GenCen), the Michael Bratton Dissertation Research Fund, William E. Rhode Fellowship, the Alliance for African Partnership, and the Institute for Humane Studies.

I have served as the instructor of record for Politics of Africa and as a co-instructor or teaching assistant for courses including Comparative Politics, Democratic Regimes, Society and the Individual, and War and Revolution Video Games, teaching in both in-person and online formats.

I hold an M.A. in Political Science from Michigan State University, an Erasmus Mundus M.A. in Journalism, Media, and Globalization (University of Amsterdam, Aarhus University, and Danish School of Media and Journalism), and a B.Sc. in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos (First Class).

My work appears in International Journal of Press/Politics, American Politics Research, Journal of Hate Studies, and Feminist Media Studies. I have also worked with Afrobarometer on policy-relevant projects across 40 African countries, connecting research to real-world democratic challenges.