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Dr. Regina Bateson has always harbored a very keen interest in civil and especially human rights. As an undergrad, she was a history major but took a lot of political science classes, enticed by the human-focused intersectionality between the two fields. Dr. Bateson’s academic journey really took off working as a research assistant for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University, where she sorted through and classified primary sources, documenting the history of the Civil Rights era in America. I sat down with Dr. Bateson, CU Boulder political scientist and author of Crime Victimization and Political Participation and the Politics of Vigilantism, to discuss her research and how she landed on the path of being a political science researcher.  

Professor Bateson’s early research experience wasn’t limited to the MLK Paper’s Project- she was also a research assistant for Dr. Terry Karl, a professor of political science at Stanford, her alma mater. Together, they worked on researching El Salvador, a country notably afflicted by civil war and human rights violations. “Those two experiences showed me two different views from two different disciplines,” Dr. Bateson says, “like how we can use data and evidence to try to increase awareness of problems related to rights and violations of rights”. These first two research experiences were what got Dr. Bateson interested in research on topics that she is still interested in today. She still loves those aspects of history and the nuances of the past, but her experience working with Dr. Karl made her realize that political science is more in tune with present day problems, stating “[political science is] more engaged with policy and more engaged with finding solutions”. Dr. Bateson appreciated the multi-method approach in political science as well.  “You can do qualitative historical research, but there’s also more opportunities for interviewing, for participant observation” she notes, “you can be really creative in putting together a combination of different methods, that you want to use to address an issue”.  

After undergrad, Bateson worked as a foreign service officer for the State Department and learned that she enjoyed being a global citizen out in the world. She reflects that her time assigned to the US Embassy in Guatemala City immersed her in a real-world post-conflict society which in turn helped develop her research interest in crime and violence. Dr. Bateson's time in Guatemala inspired her to explore how crime was affecting the consolidation of democracy in Latin America as well as the role of crime in politics, notably in people’s political attitudes and behavior. In the early 2000s, the study of crime was underexplored in political science. Among Latin America researchers, crime and politics was not a research priority at the time and the impact of criminal violence was being left unexplored. Nowadays, organized crime and criminal actors are seen as political actors that have a vast impact on people’s individual political behavior, political culture, civil society, and the overall functioning of democracy.  

Lack of research is what Dr. Bateson says motivated her to get her Ph.D. ... well, lack of research and Dr. Karl, who always encouraged her to think about grad school. She still credits Karl for planting the idea in her head. She ultimately earned her Ph.D. in political science from Yale University. Since then, Professor Bateson’s work has been published in the American Political Science Review, Perspectives on Politics, The Journal of Politics, the Journal of Peace Research, Comparative Political Studies, and other journals. Her research has won several awards, including the American Political Science Association's Heinz Eulau Award and the Gabriel A. Almond Award for the Best Dissertation in Comparative Politics. She has taught and researched at many universities since then, including MIT and the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

After so many achievements throughout the years, it’s impressive that she hasn’t changed course; I asked Dr. Bateson about what she enjoys about political science and how she stays passionate. Dr. Bateson explained that it’s very unusual to find a profession where you can have so much creativity and independence, choice over what you are working on and how you work on it, which are things that Dr. Bateson really values. “I feel like in academia, creativity is... under recognized or underappreciated, or maybe just not articulated as something that we should value.” She continues “I tend to value... being able to talk about really interesting topics. I’m fine with ambiguity, and I’m actually fine with the fact that sometimes there isn’t really a common, precise answer to what we’re looking at.” Dr. Bateson enjoys the nuances in reading others' work and debating and values the creativity that everyone brings to the field.  

As a professor, Dr. Bateson has had some memorable teaching moments, and of course wishes the best for her students as they move further on their academic journey. Dr. Bateson enjoys seeing students’ creative and unexpected projects, such as a presentation on Oprah’s interviewing skills, and a Monopoly-like game to explain high incarceration rates among Indigenous youth in Canada (spoiler: its rigged). She values her role in helping students reach their academic goals, noting that writing letters of recommendation for students and seeing their success in various fields, including law school, and Ph.D. programs is a fulfilling reward. As far as what Bateson hopes students take away from her class, she wants to provide a space for students to meet each other and form new relationships, which was especially challenging and equally important during online classes. She encourages students to think in nuanced and complicated ways about the world, emphasizing the complexity of people and organizations. She hopes to demystify big global issues by connecting them to local challenges and opportunities for involvement in their communities.

Moving forward, Bateson has several projects and publications she is working on, including a recently published article on the role of victims in politics, based on a long-term ethnographic project with victims of traffic crashes in New York City (see Finding Meaning in Politics: When Victims Become Activists). She is also working on a book chapter on the role of victims in politics, exploring their agency and political importance, and lastly, she is beginning to conduct new research on crime, policing, human rights and democracy in Central America, as well as a book on vigilantism, and its motivations. Bateson has been a part of groundbreaking work, and I know I am not alone when I say I am excited to see what is to come!