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POLS faculty and graduate students are invited to join Dr. Alasdair Roberts for an informal roundtable conversation on his current research projects on centralization in large polities and Goldwin Smith and Canada-US relations. Dr. Roberts will also discuss the ways he utilizes AI in his research.

This conversation will follow his J.A. Corry Lecture, Why Great States Fail.

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-³ÉÈË´óƬ 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 ³ÉÈË´óƬ, 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 ³ÉÈË´óƬ, 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 2014 he received the Grace-Pépin Access to Information Award for his research on open government. In 2022, he received the ASPA Riggs Award for Lifetime Achievement in International and Comparative Public Administration. 

From 2009 to 2017, Professor Roberts was co-editor of the journal Governance. He was Inaugural Director of the School of Public Policy at University of Massachusetts Amherst from 2017 to 2022. In 2022, he served as co-chair of the ASPA Presidential Committee on International Scholarly Engagement. In 2022-23, he was the Jocelyne Bourgon Visiting Scholar at the Canada School of Public Service.