Regina Bateson

Voting for a Killer: Efraín Ríos Montt's Return to Politics in Democratic Guatemala

Avery Lord — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 22:17:48 +0000

Voting for a Killer: Efraín Ríos Montt's Return to Politics in Democratic Guatemala Avery Lord Mon, 06/15/2026 - 16:17

Voting for a Killer: Efraín Ríos Montt's Return to Politics in Democratic Guatemala

By: Regina Bateson

Abstract:

From 1982 to 1983, General Efraín Ríos Montt presided over an especially bloody period of the Guatemalan civil war. Under Ríos Montt's watch, the state killed approximately 75,000 of its own citizens. Yet less than a decade later, the former dictator emerged as one of the most popular politicians in newly democratic Guatemala. How did a gross human rights violator stage such an improbable comeback? Using process tracing, I argue that Ríos Montt's trajectory is best explained by his embrace of populism as his core political strategy. This analysis deepens our knowledge of an important case, while shedding light on broader questions about how and when actors with profoundly undemocratic values can hijack democracy for their own ends.

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Balancing Pregnancy, Parenthood, and Graduate School

Avery Lord — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 22:13:40 +0000

Balancing Pregnancy, Parenthood, and Graduate School Avery Lord Mon, 06/15/2026 - 16:13

Balancing Pregnancy, Parenthood, and Graduate School

By: Kimberly McManaway, Regina Bateson, Marty Jordan, Karen Kedrowski, Kyle Harris

Abstract:

While some scholarly articles and reports examine the needs of faculty parents (Bassett 2005; Colbeck and Drago 2005; APSA CSWP 2016; van Assendelft et al. 2019), graduate student parents remain largely ignored in academia. The number of graduate students with children is increasing (Mason 2009; Perry 2021), and the lack of support for such students may contribute to the “leaky pipeline” in academia (Windsor and Crawford 2020). This chapter aims to recognize the needs and existence of graduate
student parents. The authors represent a diverse set of experiences and perspectives. Some of us were pregnant and/or had children while in graduate school, were expectant on the job market, or gave birth to children as non-tenured assistant professors. One of the authors underwent fertility treatments, two of the authors suffered multiple miscarriages and a third suffered one, and two of the authors had twins. We offer our viewpoints juggling the competing demands of our academic and domestic responsibilities. However, we acknowledge that our perspectives are finite; they do not fully encompass everyone’s intersectional identities and experiences as graduate student parents. Nevertheless, we hope the guidance here serves as one source of information for those on this journey.

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The 2016 election and America’s standing abroad: quasi-experimental evidence of a Trump effect

Avery Lord — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 22:11:40 +0000

The 2016 election and America’s standing abroad: quasi-experimental evidence of a Trump effect Avery Lord Mon, 06/15/2026 - 16:11

The 2016 election and America’s standing abroad: quasi-experimental evidence of a Trump effect

By: Regina Bateson, Michael Weintraub

Abstract:

Global favorability toward the United States declined by more than 10 percentage points from 2016 to 2017. This shift coincided with the end of the Obama administration and the inauguration of Donald Trump—but did Trump’s election cause America’s standing abroad to erode? Leveraging a natural experiment, we show that Trump’s victory had an immediate, negative effect on international public opinion toward the United States. Our identification strategy exploits the fact that a major cross-national survey, the AmericasBarometer, was in the field when the 2016 US presidential election occurred. Using data from four Latin American countries, we compare respondents surveyed just before and after the election. We find that Trump’s unexpected win caused a sharp drop in trust in the US government. While scholars have long observed that domestic political considerations shape leaders’ foreign policy decisions, we show that domestic political events—such as elections—can also affect a country’s international image.

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Perceptions of Pandemic Resume Gaps: Survey Experimental Evidence from the United States

Avery Lord — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 22:10:00 +0000

Perceptions of Pandemic Resume Gaps: Survey Experimental Evidence from the United States Avery Lord Mon, 06/15/2026 - 16:10

Perceptions of Pandemic Resume Gaps: Survey Experimental Evidence from the United States

By: Regina Bateson

Abstract:

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of people found themselves out of work in 2020 and 2021. Going forward, will their pandemic resume gaps be stigmatized or forgiven? In a recent survey experiment in the United States, I find that US adults have negative perceptions of individuals who were unemployed during the novel coronavirus pandemic. When asked to select among fictional applicants for a job opening in the hospitality industry, respondents prefer those who were employed continuously throughout the pandemic. Respondents are about 20% less likely to choose applicants with pandemic resume gaps, regardless of whether they were laid off, stopped working to supervise virtual school, or yo-yoed in and out of employment. Respondents also describe applicants with pandemic resume gaps in more negative terms, perceiving them as less hardworking, less dedicated, less professional, and less qualified than otherwise identical applicants who remained employed. Public opinion toward individuals with breaks in employment during the pandemic matters because it may affect public policy, and because stigma harms job seekers in multiple ways. Furthermore, the results of the experiment are consistent among survey respondents with hiring and managerial experience. While we should always be cautious about generalizing from survey experiments, these findings suggest that people who were out of work during the COVID-19 pandemic may face disadvantages when they return to the labor market.

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Finding Meaning in Politics: When Victims Become Activists

Avery Lord — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 22:08:07 +0000

Finding Meaning in Politics: When Victims Become Activists Avery Lord Mon, 06/15/2026 - 16:08

Finding Meaning in Politics: When Victims Become Activists

By: Regina Bateson

Abstract:

Victimization is often associated with increased political participation, and victims are influential political actors in many countries around the world. Yet for victims, activism is costly: they tell and re-tell painful stories, face searing criticism, and work to exhaustion—all at one of the worst moments of their lives. So why do they do it? Based on ethnographic research with Families for Safe Streets, a group of victims-turned-activists in New York City, this article advances a new explanation for victims’ participation in politics. I propose that for some victims, meaning-making is an in-process benefit of activism. My inductive research suggests three ways victims find meaning in politics. First, through their activism, victims can re-conceptualize the losses and harms they have suffered as policy problems, rather than random, inexplicable events. Victims may also seek to help others by changing laws to prevent similar tragedies from recurring, and some victims see their activism as a way of fulfilling important obligations to their communities, their families, and their deceased relatives.

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Research ethics and state power: access vs. integrity in the study of armed actors

Avery Lord — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 22:05:44 +0000

Research ethics and state power: access vs. integrity in the study of armed actors Avery Lord Mon, 06/15/2026 - 16:05

Research ethics and state power: access vs. integrity in the study of armed actors

By: Regina Bateson, Christine Cheng

Abstract:

In the study of armed actors, the state poses significant – yet often unrecognised – ethical challenges for researchers. This article provides a framework for researchers to pro-actively manage their relationships with the state. First, we show how the state affects the ethics of research on armed actors. Then we illustrate the danger of ignoring, discounting, or misreading the state, both at home and abroad. We question common assumptions about state unity, competence, and legitimacy, and we identify a persistent ethical dilemma between access, which is often mediated or controlled by the state, and integrity. We probe this dilemma via three dimensions of state power: the power of funding and partnership; the power of policy laundering; and the power of gatekeeping, surveillance, and coercion. Ultimately, we argue that ethically sound research on armed actors requires researchers to carefully and continuously re-examine their beliefs about the state. Along the way, we offer practical guidance on interacting with state-backed funders; mitigating risk and tempering the influence of the state during fieldwork; and thinking through the state’s complex and contradictory roles. We also raise uncomfortable questions about the red lines separating researchers’ interests from states’ interests.

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Democratic Institutions in Guatemala: Theory and Practice

Avery Lord — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 22:04:20 +0000

Democratic Institutions in Guatemala: Theory and Practice Avery Lord Mon, 06/15/2026 - 16:04

Democratic Institutions in Guatemala: Theory and Practice

By: Omar Sanchez-Sibony, Michael E Allison, Dinorah Azpuru, Regina Bateson, Rachel E Bowen, Jonatán Lemus, Christopher A Martínez, Annabella España-Nájera, Mar Martínez Rosón, Harald Waxenecker

Abstract:

Democratic Institutions in Guatemala: Theory and Practice advances knowledge about Guatemala's democracy by embedding the country in recent conceptual and theoretical work in comparative politics. This volume sheds light upon the stubborn realities and challenges afflicting Guatemalan democracy during the post Peace Accords era. Each chapter delves into the main democratic institutions, informal practices, and players shaping the operative political game: elections, Congress, the Judiciary, the high courts, presidentialism, criminal actors, political parties, the political left and political right, and the peak business association CACIF. This book seeks to escape the perils of parochialism by placing the country within larger scholarly debates and paradigms.

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A Criminal Threat to Democracy in Guatemala

Avery Lord — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 22:02:03 +0000

A Criminal Threat to Democracy in Guatemala Avery Lord Mon, 06/15/2026 - 16:02

The Criminal Threat to Democracy in Guatemala

By: Regina Bateson

Abstract:

As the Guatemalan civil war waned in the early 1990s, Guatemala began a transition to democracy. With the brief exception of the “Democratic Spring” of 1944–1954, 1 Guatemalan had been under authoritarian rule for most of the twentieth century. Not all presidents were military officers, but it was clear that the military—not the people—controlled Guatemala’s destiny. 2 Although elections were regularly held, especially in the latter half of the twentieth century, these contests were neither free nor fair. Somehow the military’s preferred candidates almost always prevailed. And even when they did not, the military still held sway behind the scenes3—to the detriment of the country’s large Indigenous population and the rural poor, who had little access to power.

By the mid-1990s, that all began to change. New political parties emerged, internationally monitored elections were held, and the Peace Accords of 1996 charted a new path for Guatemala’s future. Yet as in so many key moments of Guatemalan history, Guatemala’s transition to democracy occurred in the shadow of violence. First and foremost, although the civil war formally ended in 1996, the scars of the conflict lingered. 4 More than 200,000 Guatemalans had been killed (Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico 1999, 21), and many more were wounded or orphaned. For many, the lofty rhetoric of the Peace Accords proved to be more aspiration than reality, as they waited years to decades to see justice for the wartime atrocities they had suffered—if justice ever came at all. 5

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Kamala Harris and the ‘electability’ trap

Avery Lord — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 20:06:47 +0000

Kamala Harris and the ‘electability’ trap Avery Lord Mon, 12/02/2024 - 13:06

Regina Bateson, explores "strategic discrimination," where voters hesitate to support diverse candidates due to concerns that others might reject them based on race or gender. This bias, rooted in misperceptions, persists despite date showing that voters are generally willing to elect women and people of color. Bateson's research inspires by her own congressional campaign, highlights how these misbeliefs undermine the electability of candidates like Vice President Kamala Harris, who faces skepticism as a multiracial woman who ran for president.

Read full article here

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Meet Regina Bateson

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 19:28:11 +0000

Meet Regina Bateson Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/30/2024 - 13:28

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, ̽��Ƶ 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!

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