Academic Areas of Expertise
Electoral Politics, Election Reform, Election Administration, Legislative Procedure, and Institutional Development
Biography
Ryan Williamson joined the faculty at the University of Wyoming in 2023. He received his doctorate from the University of Georgia and his undergraduate degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Prior to joining UW, he spent time in Washington, D.C. working as a congressional fellow in the United States Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and as a governance fellow at a think tank focused on institutional reforms designed to increase efficiency and effectiveness in Congress and elections.
His primary areas of expertise include electoral politics, electoral institutions, election administration, and legislative procedure. His research on these topics includes published work in the Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Electoral Studies, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, Election Law Journal, and various other outlets. A detailed list of all his publications can be found here.
He has also published a book with Oxford University Press entitled Nationalized Politics: Evaluating Electoral Politics Across Time. This book asks, "how has nationalization influenced elections across different political eras?" and looks at variation in nationalization through an analysis of congressional elections from 1840 to 2020. By examining roughly 180 years of elections, this book leverages considerable differences in electoral competition, electoral rules, nationalization, polarization, and partisan advantage via the incumbency advantage to provide a comprehensive history of US congressional elections. Nationalized Politics illustrates the roots of the current electoral landscape within the United States.
