Erin Hern
Assistant Professor, Political Science
Degree
PSC
123 - Introduction to Comparative Politics
PSC
351 - Political Economy of Development
Specialties
Comparative politics, African politics, political participation, women and gender
Publications
2019. Developing
States, Shaping Citizenship: Service Delivery and Political Behavior in Zambia.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
2018. “Taking to the Streets: Protest Behavior in sub-Saharan
Africa.” Comparative Political Studies. With Adam Harris. DOI: 10.1177/0010414018806540
2018. “Pentecostal
Identity & Citizen Engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa: New Evidence from
Zambia.” Politics and Religion. With
Elizabeth Sperber. DOI: 10.1017/S1755048318000330
2018. “Gender and Participation in
Africa’s Electoral Regimes: An Analysis of Variation in the Gender Gap.” Politics, Groups, and Identities. DOI: 10.1080/21565503.2018.1458323
2017. “The Trouble with Institutions:
How Women’s Policy Machineries Can Undermine Women’s Mass Participation.” Politics & Gender 13(3): 405-431.
2017. “Better than Nothing: How
Policies Influence Political Participation in Low-Capacity Democracies.” Governance 30(4): 583-600.
2017. “In the Gap the State
Left: Policy Feedback, Collective Behavior, and Political Particpation in
Zambia.” Studies in Comparative International Development 52(4): 510-531
Research Projects
Across African countries, women participate in politics less
than men. This gendered gap in political participation persists even after
controlling for the individual-level characteristics that explain voting
behavior in advanced industrial democracies. Additionally, the size of the gap
between men’s and women’s participation varies dramatically from country to
country. This research project seeks to address the overarching question: what accounts for variation in the gender gap in political participation
in African countries? In earlier work, I
established that the gap between men’s and women’s participation was larger in
former French colonies and smaller in countries with more female legislative
representatives. In this project, my goal is to disentangle the mechanisms
connecting colonial history and descriptive representation to women’s
participation more broadly. The two guiding questions for this project are as
follows:
1. Why is the gender gap in political participation larger in
former French colonies than elsewhere?
2. What are the mechanisms driving the relationship between
women’s representation and enhanced women’s political participation?