Scott Gates (born 29 December 1957 in Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American political scientist and economist based in Norway.

He was director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)'s Centre for the Study of Civil War (CSCW), which was a Norwegian Center of Excellence funded by the Research Council of Norway for a twelve-year period 2002-2013.

He is currently a Research Professor at PRIO, a Guest Researcher at ESOP in the Department of Economics at the University in Oslo and also holds a professorship in the Department of Political science at the University of Oslo.

His current research topics include Rise of China, Islamic State and Police Brutality.

His previous research includes Applied Game Theoretic Analysis, International Relations Theory, International Political Economy, Formal Models of Bureaucracy and Economic Modeling.