Erik Herron

I am the Eberly Family Professor of Political Science at West Virginia University. My research focuses on political institutions, especially election rules. I have traveled extensively in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, including a semester as a Fulbright scholar in Ukraine and eleven election observation missions in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine. I am a member of the Executive Committee for the Representation and Electoral Systems Section of the American Political Science Association and was its bibliographer from 2002-2011. I have performed outreach about elections with government officials, the media, and the public in the U.S. and abroad, and have published my research in the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, World Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Electoral Studies, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Party Politics, Election Law Journal, Democratization, Europe-Asia Studies, East European Politics and Societies, Nationalities Papers, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Journal of Central Asian Studies, and Problems of Post-Communism. I have also published two books with Palgrave Macmillan: Mixed Electoral Systems: Contamination and its Consequences (with Federico Ferrara and Misa Nishikawa) and Elections and Democracy after Communism?.

Thematic Areas of Expertise