Areas of Specialization: public administration; homeland security, emergency management, crisis and disaster policy; intelligence; ethics; managerial decision-making; bureaucratic autonomy.
Education: Postdoctoral Fellowships: Harvard University, Stanford University
Ph.D., Government, University of Virginia
M.A, Political Philosophy, Claremont Graduate University
B.A. in Politics (Honors) and concentration in languages, University of Dallas
Experience: Associate Professor, School of Public and International Affairs, Virginia Tech, Alexandria, VA
Foreign Policy Advisor, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, U.S. State Department
Visiting Associate Professor, School of Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University,
Ghaemian Scholar-in-Residence, Heidelberg Center for American Studies, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Reporter and Editor, Associated Press
Bio: Patrick Roberts has a lifelong fascination with how governments manage emergencies. He’s also interested in how sometimes, when the wheels fall off, bureaucrats speak back to politicians. This began when he grew up along the Texas gulf coast and helped protect homes against hurricane winds and rain. After disaster struck, he noticed how mayors always seemed to blame the state and federal government. The federal government, in turn, pointed the finger at localities, and everyone blamed bureaucrats. Somehow, the president was assumed to be the responder-in-chief. Roberts wondered why.
His first career was an Associated Press reporter, where he covered ice storms, floods, and New York state politics. Reporting on day-to-day events stoked his curiosity about why emergencies unfold, and why disaster and crisis policies always seem to respond to events rather than anticipate them.
Roberts’ research traces the development of disaster and security organizations and their capacity, performance and especially their degree of autonomy, or ability to develop and pursue a perspective independent of the will of elected politicians and interests. Organizational autonomy is particularly important given the thickening layers of bureaucracy and increasingly coordinated agendas in contemporary politics. The idea also complements the emerging literature on networks.
Patrick’s book, Disasters and the American State, provides the only single-volume history of the development of federal government disaster management in the United States. The contentsrange from the origins of the disaster state between 1789 and 1914 to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security between 1993 and 2003 and include details behind the rise of emergency management, the formation of FEMA, and the rising expectations of government in disaster politics.
Patrick manages Virginia Tech’s Homeland Security Policy Graduate Certificate, which helps prepare those who work in the fields of homeland security strategy and emergency management. The certificate helps students evaluate the larger context of current global security threats. The certificate integrates real-world experiences such as visiting emergency operations centers with reading and discussion in small seminars. He has taught primarily early and mid-career students working in government and non-profits seeking graduate degrees in Virginia Tech’s School of Public and International AffairsandCenter for Public Administration and Policy’s Alexandria and Arlington (DC area) campuses.
His research has been funded by a variety of organizations, all of which have a mission of advancing knowledge of how bureaucrats, politicians, and the public can work together to reduce risk. Roberts is always excited about partnerships with organizations focused managing disaster and security organizations, as well as those who would benefit from fresh thinking in the form of student projects.
Roberts’s career combines scholarly and applied research – he has worked as a journalist, at the Associated Press, and in government, during 2017-18 as a Council on Foreign Relations Stanton International Affairs Fellowat the State Department, where he served as a foreign policy advisor in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, working in issues related to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency .
After graduate school, he held two postdoctoral fellowships, one at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, and another at Harvard University’s Program on Constitutional Government.
He also taught for a year as the Ghaemian Scholar-in-Residence at the Center for American Studiesat the University of Heidelberg in Germany, and for another year as a visiting professor at Rutgers University’s Newark’s School of Public Affairs and Administration. While at Rutgers, he was also in residence at the Wertheim Room at the New York Public Library.
Official Bio:
Patrick S. Roberts is an associate professor in the Center for Public Administration and Policy in the School of Public and International Affairs at Virginia Tech in Alexandria, Virginia. He holds a Ph.D. in Government from the University of Virginia, and he spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow, one at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and another at the Program on Constitutional Government at Harvard University. He spent 2010-11 as the Ghaemian Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Heidelberg Center for American Studies in Germany. He has also been a reporter for the Associated Press. For 2017-18, Patrick served as a foreign policy advisor and Council on Foreign Relations Stanton International Affairs Fellow in the State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation. Patrick has published in a variety of scholarly and popular journals, and his research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Naval Laboratories, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Social Science Research Council. He is the author of Disasters and the American State: How Politicians, Bureaucrats, and the Public Prepare for the Unexpected(Cambridge, 2013).