Henry Thomson is a political economist in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University and a visiting fellow in the Program on Pluralism and Civil Exchange at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Originally from New Zealand, he studied political science, economics, international relations and German literature at Wellington, Tübingen, Berlin and Minnesota.

His research focuses on the economic origins of democracy and democratic stability, and the politics of authoritarian rule. He's the author of "Food and Power: Regime Type, Agricultural Policy and Political Stability," which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2019.