A native of New Liskeard, Ontario, Canada, Roberts began his BA in politics at Queen's University in 1979. He received a JD from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 1984, a Master's degree in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1986, and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University in 1994.

He is currently the Jerome L. Rappaport Professor of Law and Public Policy at Suffolk University Law School's Rappaport Center. Previously, he was a professor of public administration in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, and an associate professor in the School of Policy Studies at Queen's University. He is also a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow of the Constitution Unit, School of Public Policy, University College London, and also co-editor of the journal Governance.

Roberts has been cited in publications including The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Times (London), Prospect, and the National Journal. His essays have appeared in numerous periodicals in the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, and elsewhere, including The Guardian, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Government Executive, Prospect, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), Dnevnik, Saturday Night, and The Washington Post.

His book Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age, received the 2006 Louis Brownlow Book Award from the National Academy of Public Administration, the 2007 book award from the Section on Public Administration Research of the American Society for Public Administration, the 2007 Best Book Award of the Academy of Management's Public and Nonprofit Division, and the 2007 Charles Levine Memorial Book Prize of the International Political Science Association's Research Committee on the Structure of Governance.

His most recent book is The Collapse of Fortress Bush: The Crisis of Authority in American Government. His next book, The Logic of Discipline: Global Capitalism and the Architecture of Government, will be published in March 2010.