Foreign Aid and Countering Violent Extremism

Jessica Trisko Darden is a Jeane Kirkpatrick fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where her research focuses on US foreign aid policy, specifically the effectiveness of such aid in improving political and human conditions in recipient countries, and the coercive effect of foreign aid, which often allows countries to divert economic assistance to military expenditures.

Dr. Trisko Darden is also an assistant professor of international affairs with the School of International Service at American University. Earlier, she was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario and a visiting scholar and teaching fellow at Yale University.

Dr. Trisko Darden has contributed to several edited volumes and has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including Asian Security, Human Rights Review, and International Journal. She has also written for the popular press and has been published in The Washington Post and The Huffington Post, among others. Her radio and television appearances include CNN, “The Today Show” on NBC News, and BBC News.

She has a Ph.D. in political science and a B.A. in international development and Russian studies from McGill University. She also has an M.A. in Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies from the University of Texas at Austin.