Alastair Smith is a British political scientist and Professor of Politics and the Bernhardt Denmark Chair of International Relations at New York University. He is one of the principal founders of the selectorate theory, and has helped greatly expand upon the selectorate theory with longtime collaborator, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. Smith's main areas of research as in political development, foreign aid, and the study of conflict in international relations.^[1]

Smith received a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Rochester in 1995. Bueno de Mesquita was a member of his dissertation committee.

Smith has authored and co-authored several books. His most popular work, The Dictator's Handbook, published in 2011 with Bueno de Mesquita, is a popular science non-fiction book that explains the selectorate theory to a general audience. He has also written Election Timing (2004), which discusses the strategy amongst prime ministers in selecting snap election dates, as well as The Spoils of War: Green, Power, and the Conflicts That Made Out Greatest Presidents (2016) with Bueno de Mesquita, which re-examines several notable US Presidents, including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama and studies their most notable acts from the perspective of leadership survival strategy.^[2]

His course work at New York University primarily concerns the application of theoretical models to international relations, especially to the study of conflict.

Despite living in the United States since the early 1990s, Smith is not a citizen of the United States.^[3]

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