Her research interests include politics in Russia and the former Soviet states; social identities including methodological issues and measurement; nationalism, regionalism and ethnic politics; identity-related variables in public health and demography; norms and institutional change, including bureaucracy and constructivist political economy. 

She teaches courses on comparative politics, social identities, and politics of the states of the Former Soviet Union. 

Her first book, Imagined Economies: The Sources of Russian Regionalism (Cambridge University Press, 2005), examined the relationship between economics and regionalism in movements for greater sovereignty among the Russian regions of the Russian Federation. 

A second book and collaborative project with Rawi Abdelal, Alastair Iain Johnston, Rose Mcdermott, and Will Lowe, focused on measurement of social identities.  This project resulted in an article, "Identity as a Variable," Perspectives on Politics, 2006, 4:4 (December), pp. 695-711; an edited volume titled, Measuring Identity: A Guide For Social Scientists, published by Cambridge University Press in 2009; and a content analysis, program, the YOSHIKODER.

Herrera’s third book, Mirrors Of The Economy: National Accounts And International Norms In Russia And Beyond, was published by Cornell University Press in 2010.  This book was an honorable mention for the 2011 Ed A. Hewett book prize, sponsored by the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research (NCEEER), awarded annually by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies for an outstanding publication on the political economy of the centrally planned economies of the former Soviet Union and East Central Europe and their transitional successors.

Mirrors of the Economy analyzes the variance in implementation of the UN’s System of National Accounts (SNA), and in particular the success of post-communist countries in implementing the SNA. The SNA is the basis for all national economic data including GDP and is therefore critical for economic policy and policy assessment. The book begins from a constructivist approach to institutions, explaining the development of the SNA as a global norm in terms of mutual constitution by actors (national statistical offices) and rules at the international level. The book also proposes a novel theoretical concept, conditional norms, in order to explain the process by which local actors respond to global norms, and suggests that changes in conditions may be a source of interest in institutional change. The investigation includes cross-national quantitative analysis of implementation of the SNA and an in-depth case study of the transformation of the Russian Federation's economic statistics according to the SNA in the early 1990s.  

Finally, she is working on xenophobia and contemporary Russian nationalism and is beginning a project on the role of identity-related variables in public health and demography outcomes in the states of the former Soviet Union.

Yoshiko Herrera, and Nicole M. Butkovich Kraus, "National Identity and Xenophobia in Russia: Opportunities for Regional Analysis," in William M. Reisinger, ed., Russia's Regions and Comparative Subnational Politics. Routledge, 2012.

Yoshiko Herrera, "Imagined Economies: Constructivist Political Economy, Nationalism, and Economic-Based Sovereignty Movements in Russia," in R. Abdelal, M. Blyth and C. Parson, eds. Constructing The International Economy, Cornell University Press, 2010.

Yoshiko Herrera, Mirrors of the Economy: National Accounts and International Norms in Russia and Beyond. Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2010

Yoshiko Herrera, and Rose McDermott, "Psychological Versus Rational Models of Human Decision-Making." Symposium in APSA Comparative Politics Newsletter 21, 1 (Winter 2010): 21-23.

Yoshiko Herrera, Rawi Abdelal, Alastair Iain Johnston, and Rose McDermott eds.: Measuring Identity: A Guide for Social Scientists. Cambridge University Press, 2009.