Clifford Bates

Clifford Bates joined Norwich University in 2004 as a lecturer for international law. He is also a professor at Warsaw University's American Studies Center since 2002 where he has taught courses on American political institutions (i.e., Congress, The Presidency, State and Local Government, Federalism, the Courts, as well as the U.S. Political System), the American political tradition, American Constitutionalism, and American Political History (e.g., the Civil War, the Founding of the U.S. Constitution).  He has also taught at the Warsaw University’s Institute of International Relations, between 1999 to 2014, offered courses at the graduate school on Graduate Research Methods, Comparative Politics, Statecraft and Statesmanship, and American National Security Institution and Policy.  

Bates was formerly (1999-2004) an external consultant for the Polish Ministry of Labor and Social Policy’s Department of European Integration and International Cooperation, as well as (in 2004-6) an external consultant on comparative constitutionalism for the Polish Constitutional Tribunal. He is a frequent commentator dealing American Politics for Polish Media (on Radio and TV).

His doctoral work focused on the history of political philosophy, comparative politics and literature and politics. His doctoral dissertation was on kingship, democracy and the rule of law in Aristotle’s Politics Book 3. Bates is interested in classical political philosophy and how it offers a critique of modern political thought, especially contemporary democratic theory.  He is the author of Aristotle’s “Best Regime” Kingship, Democracy, and the Rule of Law (LSU Press, 2003). His second book is on The Centrality of the Regime for Political Science (Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2016).

Recent scholarly activities have been published in Political Studies Review and the Law and Politics Book Review (a journal of the Law and Courts section of the American Political Science Association). He is currently working on two manuscripts: the first a history of liberalism from Thomas Hobbes to Carl Schmitt. The second dealing manuscript, on the science of the regime in the thought of Aristotle and what it has to teach us about our politics today.