He was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University from 1975 to 1976, and he was the president of the Public Choice Society from 1986 to 1988.
Odershook graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1964 with a Bachelor of Science degree in economics, politics, and engineering.
Ordeshook was one of the pioneers who introduced formal mathematical models into political science, and has been highly influential in the field.
McKelvey and Ordeshook were early developers of laboratory experiments that showed, among other findings, how people can use relatively simple pieces of information to make complex political decisions.
Ordeshook (1992) re-examined the importance of constitutional devices such as the separation of powers and scheduled elections, and the role of federalism for the stability of the American political system.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, Ordeshook collaborated with his students and social scientists from Russia and Ukraine, and helped each of these countries design their new constitution.
Aligned with Ordeshook’s research interest in voting, corruption and constitutional design, collaborations with many of these students resulted in research contributions such as Constitutional Secessions Clauses (with Yan Chen, Constitutional Political Economy,1994), Designing Federalism (with M. Filippov and O. Shvetsova, Cambridge University Press, 2004), Endogenous Time Preferences in Social Networks (with Marianna Klochko, Edward Elgar, 2005), and The Forensics of Election Fraud: Russia and Ukraine (with Mikhail Myagkov, Cambridge University Press, 2009).