His main research interests are in democratic theory and practice, the history of political and social thought, and philosophy of the social sciences. At Duke Kunshan, he teaches courses on ethics and public policy and courses in the Common Core.

Bowman is co-author of Deliberative Global Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2019). His publications have appeared in journals such as Policy Studies, Journal of Deliberative Democracy, Pragmatism Today, and Critical Review. They have also appeared in edited volumes such as The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Innovations in Public Governance (IOS Press, 2011). More information on his research is available at quinlanbowman.com.

Bowman has a B.A. in Politics (Highest Honors) from Oberlin College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining Duke Kunshan, he was an assistant instructional professor at the University of Chicago, where he taught a course sequence—Power, Identity, Resistance—in the Social Sciences Collegiate Division. Prior to that, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Public Policy and Global Affairs Programme at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, from 2017 to 2018, and a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra, Australia, from 2016 to 2017.