Political Sociology, Computational Social Science, Analytical Sociology, and Computational Text Analysis
Curriculum Vitae (PDF, 55.6 KB)
Hendrik Erz, PhD
Research Interests
Political Sociology, Computational Social Science, Analytical Sociology, Computational Text Analysis/NLP, Legislative Debates, U.S. Congress, Science of Science, Ethics of AI
Education
- 2025
-
PhD in Analytical Sociology, Linköping
University
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 2025
-
Researcher in Analytical Sociology
Institute for Analytical Sociology (IAS)
Linköping University - 2020-25
-
PhD Student 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. (Under review)
- Hendrik Erz, Sebastian Giessler. Language Models from the Sweatshop? Helping Researchers Avoid Ethical and Legal Issues With Off-The-Shelf Software.
- Alexandra Dirksen, Sebastian Giessler, Hendrik Erz. Ethics in Computer Science and Security Research.
- 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.
- 2024
- Alexandra Dirksen, Sebastian Giessler, Hendrik Erz, Martin Johns, Tobias Fiebig (2024). 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 Pressure in U.S.
Congress
International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2)
Norrköping, Sweden -
Vote Defection and Party Power in U.S.
Congress
Conference of the International Network of Analytical Sociologists (INAS)
Columbia University, New York, USA -
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 - Since 2024
-
Behavioral Mechanisms in the Social
Sciences
M.Sc. program; Lecturer (course director: Rodrigo Martínez Peña); Linköping University - Since 2022
-
Digital Strategies for the Social Sciences
M.Sc. program; Teaching Assistant (2022-2024) and Course Director (Since 2025); 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 and newsletter; 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)
German Sociological Association (DGS)
Referees
-
Prof. Dr. Marc Keuschnigg, University of Leipzig, Germany
Prof. Dr. Jacob Habinek, Linköping University, Sweden
Prof. Dr. Étienne Ollion, École Polytechnique, Paris, France
Prof. Dr. Peter Hedström, Linköping University, Sweden
Academic Software
- Since 2017
- Zettlr (Project Maintainer)
- Since 2024
- Pandoc (Contributor)
Languages
-
German (native), English (fluent, C1 IELTS),
Swedish (Moderate, A2), 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, SQL