Robert Bates is currently the Eaton Professor of the Science of Government
at Harvard University, where he has studied and provided consulting assistance in the areas of governmental reform, economic policy reform, and political economy in many countries throughout the world. Since 1968, Bates has worked in Zambia, the Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Colombia, and Brazil. Bates has focused much of his work on East and West Africa and has published widely on issues of public policy, agricultural policy, and economic policy reform in these regions. He has previously held appointments at the California Institute of Technology and Duke University and has been a researcher at the Institute of Development Studies of the University of Nairobi, the Institute for Social Research of the University of Zambia and Fedesarrollo in Bogotá, Colombia. Bates holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.