He is currently Chair of Political Theory at the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law.

[2] He was previously Dean of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Shandong University and professor at Tsinghua University (Schwarzman College and Department of Philosophy).

[3] He has put forward his views in favour of China's political meritocracy and against one person one vote as a mode of selection for political leaders in his books[4][5][6] and in comments published in The New York Times,[7] the Financial Times,[8][9] and in regular columns published in The Huffington Post,[10] in Project Syndicate,[11] in The Guardian,[12] as well as the Chinese-language periodical South Reviews (《南风窗》)[13] and a Chinese-language blog site on Caijing (《财经》).

He also pointed out that Confucianism influenced how he acts a political theorist and a teacher.

[15] Bell is the author of books including: He is the series editor of a translation series by Princeton University Press that aims to translate the original works of Chinese scholars: He is also the editor of Confucian Political Ethics (Princeton University Press) and the co-editor of six books: