Henry Thomson
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Mail code: 3902Campus: Tempe
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Henry Thomson is an Associate Professor in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University. He is a political economist with a research focus on economic development, authoritarian rule, and transitions to democracy.
He is the author of two books, Watching the Watchers: Communist Elites, the Secret Police and Social Order in Cold War Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2024) and Food and Power: Regime Type, Agricultural Policy and Political Stability (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Before joining ASU, Thomson was a Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. He completed his PhD in Political Science at the University of Minnesota. His doctoral dissertation won the 2015 Juan Linz Prize for the Best Dissertation in the Comparative Study of Democratization from the American Political Science Association. He has been a visiting scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, at Australian National University, and at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies in Berlin.
Professor Thomson teaches classes on Democratization, Political Economy, International Political Economy, and social science research design.
He is also a Faculty Honors Advisor in the School of Politics and Global Studies. More information on the writing an Honors thesis in SPGS, click here.
- Ph.D. Political Science, University of Minnesota
- M.S. Applied Economics, University of Minnesota
- M.A. International Relations, Berlin, Germany
- B.A. (Hons), Political Science & German, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Books
2024. Watching the Watchers: Communist Elites, the Secret Police and Social Order in Cold War Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press).
2019. Food and Power: Regime Type, Agricultural Policy and Political Stability (New York: Cambridge University Press).
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
2024. "The Bureaucratic Politics of Authoritarian Repression: Intra-Agency Reform and Surveillance Capacity in Communist Poland" in Political Science Research and Methods 12(4): 767-782.
2023. "Urban Social Disorder 3.0: A Global, City-Level Dataset on Political Mobilization and Disorder" in Journal of Peace Research 60(3): 521-531.
2022. "Authoritarian Repression and Electoral Opposition: Mobilization Under Germany’s Antisocialist Law" in Comparative Politics 54(4): 621-643.
2021. "Lord, Peasant... and Tractor? Agricultural Mechanization, Moore's Thesis and the Emergence of Democracy" (with David Samuels) in Perspectives on Politics 19(3): 739-753.
2021. "Agricultural Mechanization, Moore's Thesis and Rural Elites' Attitudes Towards Democracy in Asia" (with David Samuels) in Taiwan Journal of Democracy 17(1): 1-20.
2021. "Group Organization, Elections and Urban Social Disorder in the Developing World" (with Henrik Urdal, Halvard Buhaug and Elisabeth Rosvold) in Democratization 28(8): 1525-1534.
2019. "Conflict Termination, Signals of State Weakness and Violent Urban Social Disorder in the Developing World." in Third World Thematics 4(2-3): 94-113.
2018. “Grievances, Mobilization and Mass Opposition to Authoritarian Regimes: A Sub National Analysis of East Germany’s 1953 Abbreviated Revolution.” In Comparative Political Studies 51(12): 1594-1627.
2017. “Food and Power: Agricultural Policy Under Democracy and Dictatorship.” In Comparative Politics 49(2):273-293.
2017. “Repression, Redistribution and the Problem of Authoritarian Control: Responses to the 17 June Uprising in Socialist East Germany.” In East European Politics & Societies 31(1): 68-92.
2016. “Rural Grievances, Landholding Inequality and Civil Conflict.” In International Studies Quarterly 60(3):511-519. Winner, best paper in International Relations, MPSA 2016.
2015. “Landholding Inequality, Political Strategy, and Authoritarian Repression: Structure and Agency in Bismarck’s ‘Second Founding’ of the German Empire.” In Studies in Comparative International Development 50(1):73-97.
Book Chapters
2022. "Globalization's Nationalist Future: Migration, Citizenship and the Pandemic" in Shelley and McNamara (Eds.), Citizenship and Civic Leadership in America (Lanham, MD: Lexington Press).
2020. "The Authoritarian Governor's Dilemma: Controlling the Secret Police in Socialist Poland and East Germany" in Abbott, Zangl, Snidal and Genschel (Eds.), The Governor's Dilemma: Indirect Governance Beyond Principals and Agents (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
2013. “Universal, Unequal Suffrage: Authoritarian Vote-Seat Malapportionment in the1907 Austrian Electoral Reform.” In Marija Wakounig and Markus P. Beham (eds.), Transgressing Boundaries: Humanities in Flux (Vienna: LIT Verlag).
Courses
2025 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| SGS 493 | Honors Thesis |
| POS 586 | Intl Political Economy |
| POS 294 | Special Topics |
2023 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| POS 493 | Honors Thesis |
| POS 485 | Political Economy |
| POS 294 | Special Topics |
| SGS 294 | Special Topics |
2022 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| POS 492 | Honors Directed Study |
| POS 493 | Honors Thesis |
| POS 503 | Empirical Political Inquiry |
| POS 485 | Political Economy |
2022 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| POS 493 | Honors Thesis |
2021 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| POS 492 | Honors Directed Study |
| POS 493 | Honors Thesis |
| POS 503 | Empirical Political Inquiry |
| POS 351 | Democratization |
2021 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| POS 485 | Political Economy |
| POS 351 | Democratization |
2020 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| POS 492 | Honors Directed Study |
| POS 493 | Honors Thesis |
| POS 503 | Empirical Political Inquiry |
2020 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| POS 586 | Intl Political Economy |
2019 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| POS 492 | Honors Directed Study |
| POS 493 | Honors Thesis |
| POS 503 | Empirical Political Inquiry |
| POS 486 | Internatl Political Economy |