Kenneth Roberts is the Susan August Rubinstein Professor of Government Professor of Government. He returns in fall 2026 for a second term as director of the Einaudi Center's Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program.

Roberts earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University, with a specialization in comparative and Latin American politics. He teaches comparative and Latin American politics, with an emphasis on the political economy of development and the politics of inequality. His research focuses on political parties, populism, labor and social movements, and democratic resilience, with a special interest in Chile, Peru, Venezuela, and Argentina. 

Much of his published work explores the intersection of political parties, social movements, and populism, in Latin America and beyond. His most recent book is the co-edited Democratic Resilience: Can the United States Withstand Rising Polarization (Cambridge University Press). Other publications include Changing Course in Latin America: Party Systems in the Neoliberal Era (Cambridge University Press), Deepening Democracy? The Modern Left and Social Movements in Chile and Peru (Stanford University Press), and the co-edited volumes The Resurgence of the Latin American Left (Johns Hopkins University Press) and The Diffusion of Social Movements (Cambridge University Press). 

Roberts served as the Senior Associate Dean for the Social Sciences in Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences, as well as the director of Cornell’s Institute for the Social Sciences. His current research projects study polarization and democracy in contemporary Latin America and crises of democracy in the global arena. He is active in the American Democracy Collaborative. Roberts led the Einaudi Center's democratic threats and resilience global research priority in academic years 2022–25.