[2] Bates has been a leading proponent of the use of rational choice theory and deductive methods in political science.
[2] After graduating from Haverford College in 1964, Bates received his Ph.D. in Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969.
Expanding the scope of his research to include countries in Eastern and Western Africa as well, he addressed the politics of agricultural development and food supply just at the time that dearth and famine increasingly arose on the continent.
Bates has received grants [quantify] from the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and other sources; been a Carnegie Scholar, an Olin Fellow at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, and Moore Fellow at the California Institute of Technology; and received the Riker Prize from the University of Rochester's department of political science.
He has held fellowships at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and the Russell Sage Foundation and served as a consultant with the World Bank.