He is the Arnold Wolfers Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Management at Yale University, where he has been teaching for over fifty years.

LaPalombara, a high-school dropout, spent the years of World War II at specialized jobs in defense industries.

A special wartime-related admissions program of the University of Illinois permitted him to enroll in and eventually to graduate (with highest honors) from that institution.

In Italy his corporate clients have included ENI (Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi), Telecom Italia, FIAT and SIAD (Bergamo).

Since that time, and in every academic year that followed, he has taught for advanced undergraduate students a seminar on the overseas investments of global firms.

The Committee functioned as one aspect of a so-called behavioral revolution which pointed in a more empirical direction the comparative study of political systems.

His research has been characterized by extensive writing on the topic of interest-group theory, and its application to political phenomenon both in the United States and abroad.

The latter included Karl Friedrich, Henry Ehrman, Jean Blondel, James Scott, Philip Shively, Robert Putnam as well as others.

His attention turned to the important role played by multinational corporations, or global firms—both in the international economy and in the evolutionary prospects of LDCs, or less developed countries.

Another aspect of his commitment to scholarly writing is LaPalombara's current membership on the editorial boards of the Yale Review and of the Journal of International Business Education.

In this regard, and along with several other Italian and American scholars, the CSS Committee arguably served to introduce in Italy advanced research methods in all of the social sciences.

In addition to his experience as a teacher, an academic researcher, or an industrial consultant, LaPalombara has sought to use journalism to further the systematic empirical study of the political process.

He has therefore published hundreds of articles for Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, Il Messaggero and many other Italian newspapers and magazines.

He is currently the American president of Reset Dialogues-USA, a non-profit organization devoted to closing the gap between the Arab world and other Western ethnicities.