Dr. Jason Klocek is a senior researcher with USIP’s religion and inclusive societies program, where he leads the “Closing the Gap: Analyzing the Relationship between Religious Freedom and Political and Economic Development” project. He is concurrently a research fellow at the University of Notre Dame’s Center for the Study of Religion and Society.

Prior to USIP, Dr. Klocek held grants and fellowships through the National Science Foundation and at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Notre Dame, and Uppsala University. He also previously served with the U.S. Peace Corps in Turkmenistan and as a docent at Etz Hayyim Synagogue in Chania, Crete.

Dr. Klocek’s research and teaching investigate the role of religion in conflict, state counterinsurgency and repression, and civil wars and political violence more broadly. He draws on diverse methods in his work, including survey experiments, quantitative cross-national analysis, and comparative historical analysis. The latter includes archival research in the United Kingdom, Israel, and Cyprus. He has also conducted fieldwork in Rwanda and South Sudan.

Dr. Klocek received a master’s and doctorate in political science from the University of California, Berkeley and a master’s in conflict resolution from Georgetown University. He received his bachelor’s in psychology and philosophy from the University of Notre Dame.

His published work is forthcoming or has appeared in top-ranked academic journals, including the Journal of Conflict Resolution and the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and media outlets such as The Washington Post. He has additionally co-authored chapters on religious violence, the military chaplaincy, and interfaith dialogue. His current book project explores how counterinsurgents construe and respond to religious rebellions with particular attention to British colonial wars during the early postwar period.