A graduate of the Institut d'études politiques de Paris and the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales, Bertrand Badie is a qualified teacher and holds a PhD in political science. His research focuses on the sociology and theory of international relations, comparative politics, multilateralism, international public opinion, the evolution of the state and sovereignty in international relations and political culture.

He started his academic career at the University of Paris I-Panthéon Sorbonne as Assistant (1974-77) and then as Graduate teaching assistant (1977-82), before becoming a professor at the University of Auvergne-Clermont-Ferrand I (1982-90). During this period, he was also a lecturer at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (1975-1990) at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (1987-1990) and is currently at HEC.

He became a lecturer and then professor at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris in 1990, then became Professor Emeritus in 2018. Bertrand Badie also directed the collections of the Presses de Sciences Po between 1994 and 2003. He was also Director of the International Relations Graduate Programme at the IEP in Paris from 1999 to 2018.

Bertrand Badie was Chairman of the Scientific Council of the French Institute for the Near East from 2006 to 2013, and a member of the Executive Committee (since 2003) then Vice President (2006-2010) of the International Political Science Association. He also chaired the jury of the national competition for the aggregation of higher education in political science in 2012-13.

Bertrand Badie is the author of some fifty publications, including La diplomatie des droits de l’Homme (2002), L’impuissance de la puissance: essai sur les incertitudes et les espoirs des nouvelles relations internationales (2004), International Encyclopedia of Political Science (in coll.), 2011, Le temps des humiliés. Pathologie des relations internationales (2014), Nous ne sommes plus seuls au monde (2016), Quand le Sud réinvente le monde (2018), L'hégémonie contestée (2019), Handbook of Political Science (in coll 2020), Rethinking International Relations (2020), Inter-socialités. Le monde n’est plus géopolitique (2020), Les Puissances mondialisées. Repenser la sécurité internationale (2021) and Vivre deux cultures. Comment peut-on naître Franco-Persan, his last book published in 2022.