Wouter van Erve

I am Wouter van Erve, an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Department of History and Political Science at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas. I am interested in political institutions, and my research focuses on the impact of institutional design in subnational political environments. My work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Social Science Quarterly and American Politics Research.

I received my Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Before pursuing a Ph.D., I earned law degrees in both The Netherlands (at Tilburg Law School) and the United States (at the University of Minnesota Law School) and worked for the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (District Attorney’s Office). While I no longer practice law, I still tremendously enjoy teaching constitutional and comparative law courses, as well as advising students as they embark on their law school journeys; I am a proud faculty advisor of TWU’s Barristers Club.

I am a passionate teacher, and have considerable experience teaching as an instructor of record for both political science as well as legal studies courses. I encourage students to become independent, creative thinkers who are able to communicate their ideas effectively, and empower them to become engaged citizens who are able to make relevant judgments and discriminations by creating challenging curricula that pull from a rich variety of resources, supplemented by assignments and classroom activities, accounting for my students’ diversity in learning styles and familiarity with the course material.