Robert H. Bates is a U.S. academic, currently the Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University. His area of focus is on political economy, specifically development. Most of his work focuses on Africa. He is the author of some 15 books. Wikipedia
The definitive Wikipedia entry for Robert Bates. Wikipedia is the biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bates