Michelle Bonner

Michelle Bonner is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and is on the faculty advisory committee for Latin American Studies. She studies democratization and human rights in Latin America, with a current focus on media and police violence.

She received her BA and MA from McGill and PhD from the University of Toronto. She came to Victoria in 2007 from the University of Ottawa where she had been an Assistant Professor. Since arriving at the University of Victoria she has been an active member of the Latin American Research Group on campus and served as a board member for the Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CALACS).

Bonner was awarded the Faculty of Social Sciences Research Excellence Award in 2015. Her research focuses on the challenge of protecting human rights in new democracies. She has explored this topic from a number of perspectives, most recently through the lens of policing. She is the author of two books. Sustaining Human Rights: Women and Argentine Human Rights Organizations (Penn State, 2007) examines the role of gender in struggles to seek justice for past and present human rights abuses in Argentina. Policing Protest in Argentina and Chile (Lynne Rienner, 2014) explores the role of discourse as a form of accountability that can support or impede reforms aimed at reducing police use of repression against protests.

Her current SSHRC-funded project analyzes the role of media as a facilitator and obstacle to police reform in the context of rising fear of crime in Latin America. The project, tentatively titled Marketing Police Reform: Media, Human Rights and the Politics of Accountability in Latin America, compares the cases of Argentina and Chile but places the discussion in a broader Latin American context.

Recent Publications

• Policing Protest in Argentina and Chile. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2014.

Journal Articles and Chapters

• 2015 "Rethinking Debates on Media and Police Reform in Argentina" Policing and Society. http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/9ve64qGXUbg48JwnpyqF/full
• 2014 Bonner, Michelle D. "Never Again: Transitional Justice and Persistent Police Violence in Argentina" International Journal of Transitional Justice, 8:2, 235-255.
• 2014 Bonner, Michelle D. "Violence, Policing and Citizen (In)Security" Latin American Research Review, 49:1, 261-269. (review essay).
• 2013 "The Politics of Police Image in Chile" Journal of Latin American Studies, 45:4, 669-694.
• 2011 with Matt James. “The Three R’s of Transitional Justice: Reparation, Responsibility, and Reframing in Canada and Argentina” International Indigenous Policy Journal, Vol.2: Iss3, Article 3. Available at: http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/iipj/vol2/iss3/3/