Alasdair S. Roberts

Alasdair Roberts is a professor of public policy at University of Massachusetts Amherst. He writes extensively on problems of governance and public policy. His most recent book, The Adaptable Country: How Canada Can Survive the Twenty-First Century, was published by McGill-Queen's University Press in 2024. It was a finalist for the 2025 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. His preceding book, Superstates: Empires of the Twenty-First Century, was published by Polity in 2023. Eight earlier books have received five book awards.

Professor Roberts grew up in Pembroke, Ontario, Canada. He received his BA from Queen's University, his JD from the University of Toronto, and his MPP and PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University. Before University of Massachusetts Amherst, Professor Roberts held tenured faculty appointments at Queen's University, Syracuse University, Suffolk University Law School, and the University of Missouri. In 2007, he became the first non-US citizen to be elected as a Fellow of the US National Academy of Public Administration. In 2022, he received the ASPA Riggs Award for Lifetime Achievement in International and Comparative Public Administration.

His website is http://www.alasdairroberts.ca