Robert Bates is Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at the Harvard University where he has been a student and from where he has worked as a consulter of state reform, economic policy and politic economy for a multitude of countries all over the world. Since 1968 professor Bates has worked in Zambia, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Colombia and Brazil.
He has focused most of his work on east and West Africa and his amply published work cover issues such as public policy, agricultural politics, and economic reforms. In the past he has worked at the Californian Institute of Technology, the University of Duke and has been a researcher at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Nairobi, the Institute for Social Research at the University of Zambia and at Fedesarrollo in Bogotá, Colombia.
