Professor Yoder joined the Colby faculty in 1996 after receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park. She holds a joint appointment with the Department of Government and the Department of International Studies and teaches courses on European politics and societies. Her special interests are German politics, the transition from communism, and transitional justice. Her book, From East Germans to Germans? The New Postcommunist Elites, was published in 1999 by Duke University Press.

She has also published several articles on various aspects of East-West German integration and democratic consolidation after 1990 (for more, see link to publications below). She is currently working on a new book project - a comparative study of regionalization in postcommunist Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.

From East Germans to Germans? The New Postcommunist Elites, 
Duke University Press, 1999.
Much of the recent literature on postcommunist 'transitions to democracy' simply ignores the Eat German experience, apparently assuming that reunification provided East Germans with an easy and ready-made route to democratic capitalism and that little may be learned about transitions from the German experience. Yoder rejects this simplistic notion, filling a serious gap in the transition literature and doing so with intelligence, insight, and style. - Jane Dawson, University of Oregon

“No Longer on the Periphery: German-Polish Cross-Border Relations in a New Institutional Context,” German Politics and Society, Issue 88, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Autumn 2008) 1-24.

“Leading the Way to Regionalization in Post-Communist Europe: An Examination of the Process and Outcomes of Regional Reform in Poland,” in East European Politics and Societies, Special Issue on Poland, vol. 21, no.3 (Summer 2007).

“Decentralization and Regionalization after Communism: Lessons from Administrative and Territorial Reform in Poland and the Czech Republic,” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 55, No. 2 (March 2003) 263-286.

“Bridging the European Union and Eastern Europe: Cross-Border Cooperation and the Euroregions,” Regional and Federal Studies, Vol. 13. No. 3 (Autumn 2003) 90-106.

“West-East Integration: Lessons from East Germany’s Accelerated Transition,” East European Politics and Societies, Vol.15, No.1 (2001) 114-138.

“Regional Differentiation in the New German Länder,” in After the GDR: New Perspectives on Divided and Reunited Germany (Rodolpi, 2001).

“The New Regionalism: Sub-nationalism in Post-Communist Europe,” East European Studies/Woodrow Wilson Center Occasional Paper 58, 2001.

"Regional Differences and Political Leadership in the New German States," German Politics and Society, Vol.18, No.1 (Spring 2000) 33-65.

“Truth without Reconciliation in Post-Communist Germany: An Appraisal of the Enquete Commission on the SED Dictatorship in Germany,” German Politics, Vol.8, No.3 (December 1999) 59-80.

“The Regionalization of Political Culture and Identity in Post-Communist Eastern Germany,"East European Quarterly, vol. 32 (1998) 197-219.

"Culprits, Culpability, and Corrective Justice: Dealing with the Un-democratic Past in the Consolidation of Democracy in Post-Communist East Germany," Problems of Post-Communism., vol.45, no.4 (July-August 1998) 14-21.

“Truth without Reconciliation in Post-Communist Germany: An Appraisal of the Enquete Commission on the SED Dictatorship in Germany,” German Politics, vol.8, no.3 (December 1999) pp.59-80.