Dobson was born on a naval base in North Kingston, Rhode Island. His father, W. Joel Dobson, was a Lt. Commander in the U.S. Navy. His mother, Barbara Joyce Dobson, is an English teacher.

Dobson grew up in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and attended Spartanburg Day School. He received a Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude from Middlebury College. He later earned a master's degree in East Asian Studies from Harvard University and a Juris Doctor cum laude from Harvard Law School. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife and two children.^[2]

From 2004 to 2008, Dobson was the Managing Editor of Foreign Policy magazine. During his tenure at Foreign Policy, the magazine was nominated for a National Magazine Award five years in a row – the only magazine of its size to receive five consecutive nominations – and won the top prize twice.^[3]

Previously, he served as the Senior Editor for Asia at Newsweek International and as Associate Editor at Foreign Affairs.^[4] He has also been a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.^[5]

During the height of the Arab Spring, he wrote daily pieces on modern authoritarianism for the Washington Post’s editorial page.^[2] While reporting from Cairo, Dobson wrote the first account of the Egyptian military’s torture of female protestors in Tahrir Square.

Dobson's first book, The Dictator's Learning Curve^[6] was published by Doubleday in 2012. The non-fiction book is an analysis of modern authoritarianism and has been reviewed by various media.^[7] The Washington Post, New York Times, Financial Times, and Publishers Weekly were among those giving positive reviews.^[8]

Dobson was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2006.^[9] In 2003, he was named the U.S. Rapporteur for the World Economic Forum's East Asia Summit.^[10] The Singapore International Foundation awarded him a Distinguished Visitor Fellowship in 2008.^[11] The East-West Center awarded him a Senior Journalist Fellowship for Southeast Asia (2006) and an Journalism Fellowship (2008). Dobson was a Knight Media Fellow (2003) to the Salzburg Global Seminar, and later a Freeman Fellow in U.S.-East Asian Relations (2007).^[12]

Middlebury College recognized him with an Alumni Achievement Award in 2011.^[13] Dobson is also a 1994 Truman Scholar.^[14]

Books (Editor) edit

• Defending Democracy in an Age of Sharp Power, (Johns Hopkins University Press; 2023).

Books (Author) edit

• The Dictator’s Learning Curve, (Doubleday; 2012). ISBN 978-0385533355

Op-eds and articles edit

• The Mandarin in the Machine, Journal of Democracy, October 2022
• A Glimpse of the Way Forward, Journal of Democracy, July 2020
• The Ghost of Hugo Chavez, Slate, March 6, 2013
• Putin the Pitiful, Slate, December 28, 2012
• The East Is Crimson, Slate, May 23, 2012
• Why China Wishes Chen Would Just Go Away, Slate, May 2, 2012
• Dictatorship for Dummies, Tunisia Edition, The Washington Post, January 23, 2011
• 'The Military is above the Nation', The Washington Post, March 15, 2011
• ‘Another dictatorship, just with new faces’ for Egypt, The Washington Post, March 16, 2011
• ‘Worse than our Worst Nightmare during Mubarak,' The Washington Post, March 17, 2011
• Where are the dictator’s helpers? The Washington Post, March 18, 2011
• One Woman’s Fight to Preserve a Russian Forest, The Washington Post, March 24, 2011
• The Opposition Dictators Deserve, The Washington Post, April 16, 2011
• Why I am Glad bin Laden Lived to See the Arab Spring, The Washington Post, May 5, 2011
• In Venezuela, Fighting for the Chance to Run: ‘He will annihilate that one leader,’ The Washington Post, May 15, 2011
• Imagining a World Without Dictators, The Washington Post, August 26, 2011
• Why Gaddafi was the quintessential 20th-century dictator, The Washington Post, October 21, 2011
• In Russia, Fires—and politicians—are bringing down forests^{[dead link]}, The Washington Post, August 13, 2010
• China’s Jittery Leaders, The New Republic, March 3, 2011
• A Victory for Democratic Foreign Policy, The New Republic, May 3, 2011
• The Day Nothing Much Changed, Foreign Policy, August 8, 2006
• Tunisia’s Lessons for Repressive Regimes, U.S. News & World Report, January 20, 2011
• Global Democracy over a Barrel, The Boston Globe, May 14, 2009

Media appearances edit

Dobson has appeared and provided commentary for various news organizations, including C-SPAN,^[15] PBS NewsHour,^[16] CNN, CBS, MSNBC, National Public Radio, and Voice of America.