Kristin M. Bakke is Professor in Political Science and International Relations at University College London (UCL) and Associate Research professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). She holds a PhD and MA in political science from the University of Washington, Seattle, and has a BA in journalism and political science from Indiana University, Bloomington. She is from Norway.
Prior to joining UCL in 2009, Professor Bakke was a post-doctoral research fellow at Harvard University, at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (2007-2008), and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Leiden University (2008-2009).
She is an Associate Editor at Journal of Peace Research and serves on the advisory board of Nations and Nationalism, the editorial board of Journal of Global Security Studies, and sits on the council of the British Conflict Research Society.
Professor Bakke’s research focuses on political violence, drawing on in-depth fieldwork, public opinion surveys, and cross-case statistical analyses. The questions and topics that motivate her research include why some states are better able to avoid conflicts within their borders than others, how institutions can (or cannot) promote intrastate peace, the dynamics within self-determination movements, post-war state-building, and the reasons for states’ restrictions of civil society. Her book, Decentralization and Intrastate Struggles: Chechnya, Punjab, and Québec (Cambridge University Press, 2015), received the Conflict Research Society’s Book of the Year award in 2016. Her work has also appeared in the Annals of American Association of Geographers, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Nations and Nationalism, Perspectives on Politics, Political Geography, Regional and Federal Studies, and World Politics.