Hendrik Erz, M.A.

Political Sociology, Computational Social Science, Analytical Sociology, and Computational Text Analysis
Curriculum Vitae (PDF, 55.6 KB)
Hendrik Erz
PhD Candidate
- Address
-
Institute for Analytical Sociology (IAS)
Linköping University
Kopparhammaren 7
Kungsgatan 56, Entrance 56D
601 74 Norrköping, Sweden - Contact
-
Email: hendrik.erz@liu.se
Website: hendrik-erz.de
ORCID: 0000-0003-0775-5919
Bluesky: @hendrik-erz.de
Mastodon: @hendrikerz@scholar.social
Research Interests
Political Sociology, Computational Social Science, Analytical Sociology, Computational Text Analysis/NLP, Legislative Debates, Policymaking, U.S. Congress, Science of Science, Ethics of AI
Education
- Since 2020
-
PhD in Analytical Sociology, Linköping
University (Defense: Oct 20, 2025)
On the Record: Understanding A Century of Congressional Lawmaking Through Speech and Vote Behavior
Supervisors: Jacob Habinek (IAS, Linköping), Étienne Ollion (CNRS, Paris) - 2017
- M.A. in Sociology, University of Bonn
- 2014
- B.A. in History, University of Bonn (minor: Political Science)
Extracurricular
- 2021
-
Science of Science Summer School (S4)
Syracuse University, New York, United States
Employment
- Since 2020
-
Researcher in Analytical Sociology
Institute for Analytical Sociology (IAS)
Linköping University - 2019-20
-
Researcher in Machine Learning / Artificial
Intelligence
Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH)
University of Hamburg - 2017-19
-
Research Assistant Domestic Policy /
Digitalization
Department for Political Science and Sociology
University of Bonn
Publications
- Manuscripts in Preparation (available upon request)
- Hendrik Erz. Policymaking in Times of Crisis: Discursive Dynamics in U.S. Congress, 1960-1990. (Preprint available at SocArXiv: )
- Hendrik Erz. Brittle Parties? Dissent, Breaking Ranks, and Party Power in U.S. Congress.
- Hendrik Erz. Think Alike, Talk Alike? Measuring Issue-Level Polarization in Congressional Speech Using Community Detection-Algorithms.
- Hendrik Erz, Sebastian Giessler. Language Models from the Sweatshop? Helping Researchers Avoid Ethical and Legal Issues With Off-The-Shelf Software.
- Peer-Reviewed Articles
- 2025
- Manika Lamba, Hendrik Erz (2025). Thanking the World: Exploring gender-based differences in acknowledgment patterns and support systems in theses. Data and Information Management 100092.
- Alexandra Dirksen, Sebastian Giessler, Hendrik Erz, Martin Johns, Tobias Fiebig (2025). Don’t Patch the Researcher, Patch the Game: A Systematic Approach for Responsible Research via Federated Ethics Boards. Proceedings of the New Security Paradigms Workshop, 126–141. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery.
- 2019
-
Hendrik Erz (2019). Der lange Schatten von
Gustave Le Bon. Zum sprachlichen Einfluss der Crowd Science auf die
Soziologie der Gewalt. Soziologiemagazin 2/2019, 71–88.
(“The long shadow of Gustave Le Bon. On the linguistic influence of Crowd Science on the Sociology of Violence.”) - Books and Book Chapters
- 2025
- Hendrik Erz (2025). On the Record: Understanding a Century of Congressional Lawmaking through Speech and Vote Behavior. Linköping University Press.
- 2018
- Hendrik Erz (2018). Karl Marx und das digitale Zeitalter, in: Klasse, Kapital und Revolution. 200 Jahre Marx. Dietz, Bonn, pp. 145–156.
- Other Publications
- 2023
-
Hendrik Erz, Anastasia Menshikova (2023). Text
als Daten. Extraktion von Variablen mittels LSTM-Netzwerken. In:
Paula-Irene Villa (ed.) 2023: Polarisierte Welten. Verhandlungen des
41. Kongresses der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie 2022.
(“Text as Data. Variable Extraction via LSTM Networks”) - 2020
-
Hendrik Erz (2020). Künstliche Intelligenz und
Daten: Eine Evaluation softwarebasierter militärischer
Informationsgewinnung (Research Report No. 4). IFSH, Hamburg. (accessed
07.01.21)
(“Artificial Intelligence and data: An evaluation of software-based military intelligence.”) - Hendrik Erz (2020). Operative Porträts: eine Bildgeschichte der Identifizierbarkeit von Lavater bis Facebook. Von Roland Meyer. Review. Soziologiemagazin 2020, 75–81.
- Hendrik Erz (2020). The Status Quo is a Dystopian Nightmare. engagée 9, 20–25.
- 2019
- Hendrik Erz (2019). Neoliberalismus — Wie alles anfing: Das Walter Lippmann Kolloquium. Review. Soziologieblog. (accessed 10.23.19).
- Andreas Schulz, Hendrik Erz, Veronika Riedl (2019). How to make a Soziologiemagazin. Soziologiemagazin 1/2019. (accessed 07.01.21)
- 2017
- Hendrik Erz (2017). Zygmunt Bauman: Die Angst vor den anderen. Review. Widerspruch 70/2017, 164–168.
Invited Talks
- 2025
-
Vote Defection and Party Pressure in U.S. Congress:
Evidence from a Century of Vote and Speech Behavior
IAS Annual Spring Retreat, Kolmården, Sweden - 2024
-
Economic Policymaking in U.S. Congress
Institute for Social Science, Department for Computational Social Science
University of Stuttgart, Germany -
Economic Policymaking in U.S. Congress
IAS Annual Spring Retreat, Kolmården, Sweden - 2023
-
Polarization and Paradigm Shifts in US Congressional
Economic Policymaking
IAS Text Analysis Research Group, Norrköping, Sweden - 2022
-
Discursive Dynamics in Policymaking: Economic
Policymaking in U.S. Congress
IAS Conference, Stockholm, Sweden - 2022
-
Technological A11y: Zettlr Beyond the Code
Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe, Germany
Conference and Workshop Presentations
- 2025
-
Vote Defection and Party Power in U.S.
Congress
Joint Spring Conference of the methods sections of DGS and AS
University of Leipzig, Germany - 2024
-
Language Models from the Sweatshop? Helping Researchers
Avoid Ethical and Legal Issues With Off-The-Shelf Software
Conference of the Nordic Sociological Association (NSA) 2024, Norrköping, Sweden (in session Pretrained models and sociology) -
Policymaking in Times of Crisis: Discursive Dynamics in
U.S. Congress, 1960-1990
Conference of the American Sociological Association (ASA) 2024, Montréal, Canada -
Markets as actors: Congressional speech between
regulation and market freedom
Conference of the International Network of Analytical Sociologists (INAS), Leipzig, Germany -
Economic Policymaking in U.S. Congress
(Lightning Talk)
Swedish Conference on Computational Social Science, Uppsala, Sweden - 2023
-
Language Models from the Sweatshop? Towards Guidelines
For CSS Researchers to Avoid Ethical and Legal Issues With Off-The-Shelf
Software. (Poster)
International Conference on Computational Social Sciences (IC2S2), Copenhagen, Denmark -
From Speeches to Bills: How do Discursive Dynamics Shape
Policymaking in U.S. Congress?
Conference of the International Network of Analytical Sociologists (INAS), Princeton, United States -
Taming Rogue Ethics: The Case for a Unified and Fair IRB
Procedure
STS-hub.de Conference, Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen, Germany -
Disentangling the Discourse on U.S. Economic
Policymaking
Textual Politics Conference, Sciences Po, Paris, France. - 2022
-
Text als Daten: Extraktion von Variablen mittels
LSTM-Netzwerken
Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, Bielefeld, Germany. -
Extracting Agency from Textual Data Using LSTM
Networks
Conference of the International Network of Analytical Sociologists, Florence, Italy. - 2019
-
From Arab Spring to Gilets Jaunes: Riots and the
annihilation of legality
Historical Materialism Athens Conference, Greece. - 2017
-
Terrorismus und der War on Terror
Master Thesis Presentation, Studentischer Soziologiekongress, TU Chemnitz, Germany.
Teaching
- 2025
-
Summer Institute in Computational Social Science
(SICSS)
Lecture and workshop in ethics for CSS
Lecture and workshop in Computational Text Analysis - 2022-2024
-
Digital Strategies for the Social Sciences
M.Sc. program; Teaching Assistant; Linköping University - 2023
-
Summer Institute in Computational Social Science
(SICSS)
Lecture and workshop in Computational Text Analysis - 2021-2023
-
Logic of Social Inquiry
M.Sc. program; Teaching Assistant; Linköping University - 2018-2019
-
Introduction to Political Science
B.A. program; Teacher; University of Bonn - 2018
-
Scientific Writing
B.A. program; Teacher; University of Bonn - 2018
-
Introduction to Karl Marx’ Capital (Reading
Course)
B.A. program; Course Director; University of Bonn - 2015
-
Tutorial: Methods for Quantitative
Sociology
B.A. program; Teaching Assistant; University of Bonn
Service
- Reviewer
- Since 2025
- Network Science
- Since 2018
- Soziologiemagazin
- Editorial Board Member
- 2020-2024
- Head of Editorial Board, Soziologiemagazin
- Organization and Organizational Assistance
- Since 2023
- Swedish Interdisciplinary Research School in Computational Social Science (SIRCSS), Norrköping, Sweden (with PI Jacob Habinek)
- Since 2022
- Website administration; International Network of Analytical Sociologists (INAS)
- 2025
- Program Chair, International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2), Norrköping
- 2025
- Summer Instititute in Computational Social Science (SICSS), Norrköping, Sweden (with PI Jacob Habinek)
- 2024
- Session Pretrained models and sociology: ethical, methodological, and theoretical considerations (at NSA 2024)
- 2023
- Summer Instititute in Computational Social Science (SICSS), Norrköping, Sweden (with PI Jacob Habinek)
- 2022
- IAS PhD Retreat, Norrköping, Sweden
- 2021-2022
- IAS Salon (Institute Reading Group)
- 2021-2022
- PhD Representative, Institute for Analytical Sociology
- 2016
- Student Research Symposium, University of Bonn, Germany
Supervision
- Co-Supervisor, M.Sc. thesis in CSS, Sophia Grill (2024)
- Co-Supervisor, M.Sc. thesis in CSS, Yiqiu Wang (2023)
- Co-Supervisor, M.Sc. thesis in CSS, Lijun Peng (2022)
Memberships
-
American Sociological Association (ASA);
International Network of Analytical Sociologists (INAS)
Referees
-
Prof. Dr. Marc Keuschnigg (marc.keuschnigg@uni-leipzig.de)
Prof. Dr. Jacob Habinek (jacob.habinek@liu.se)
Prof. Dr. Étienne Ollion (etienne.ollion@polytechnique.edu)
Prof. Dr. Peter Hedström (peter.hedstrom@liu.se)
Academic Software
- Since 2017
- Zettlr (Project Maintainer)
- Since 2024
- Pandoc (Contributor)
Languages
-
German (native), English (fluent, C1),
Swedish (Moderate, B1), French (Moderate, A2)
Programming Languages & Frameworks
- Scientific
- Python, R, Stata, matplotlib, numpy, pandas, PyTorch, Slurm (HPC)
- Frontend
- JavaScript/TypeScript, HTML/CSS, Vue.js
- Backend
- Node.js, PHP, Rust, C/C++, Bash/ZSH