Dr. Seraphine F. Maerz

Senior Lecturer in Political Science (Research Methods)

School of Social and Political Science, University of Melbourne

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I am a Senior Lecturer in Political Science (Research Methods) at the University of Melbourne and an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow. Before, I held positions as Assistant Professor at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute in Gothenburg, Sweden.

My research interests are:

  • Democracy, authoritarianism, autocratization
  • Political communication, authoritarian informationalism
  • Quantitative and computational methods, large language models (LLMs)

I am co-founder of QuantLab, a new network group aiming to bring together social scientists at the University of Melbourne and beyond to share insights in cutting-edge quantitative methods and research. I offer online workshops on how to use LLMs for text analysis. Check out our new quallmer R package - an easy-to-use toolbox for qualitative researchers to quickly apply LLMs to code and analyze their data.

CV

Download CV as PDF

Publications

See also my Google Scholar profile

In peer-reviewed journals

  • Lisa Garbe and Seraphine F. Maerz (Guest Editors). The rise of authoritarian informationalism: escalating surveillance, manipulation, and control. Introduction to a Special Issue. Democratization, 33 (1), 2026. Access here.

  • Seraphine F. Maerz. How practices of digital authoritarianism harm democracy. Democratization, 33 (1), 2026. Access here.

  • Dean G. Schafer, Seraphine F. Maerz, Carsten Q. Schneider, and Alexandra Krasnokutskaya. “Strongmen” Don’t Redistribute: Illiberal Leaders on the Right and Worsening Economic Inequality. Politics and Governance, Volume 13, 2025. Access here.

  • Lisa Garbe, Seraphine F. Maerz, and Tina Freyburg. Authoritarian collaboration and repression in the digital age: Balancing foreign direct investment and control in internet infrastructure. Democratization, Online first, 2025. Access here.

  • Amanda Edgell, Jean Lachapelle, and Seraphine F. Maerz. Achieving Transparency, Traceability, and Readability with Human-Coded Data. PS: Political Science and Politics, Online first, 2024. Access here.

  • Maerz, Seraphine F., Amanda B. Edgell, Matthew C. Wilson, Sebastian Hellmeier, and Staffan I. Lindberg. Episodes of Regime Transformation. Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 61/6, 2024. Access here..

  • Wilson, Matthew C., Juraj Medzihorsky, Seraphine F. Maerz, Anna Lührmann, Patrik Lindenfors, Amanda B. Edgell, Vanessa A. Boese, and Staffan I. Lindberg. Episodes of liberalization in autocracies: A new approach to quantitatively studying democratization. Political Science Research and Methods (PSRM), 11 (3), 2023. Access here.

  • Edgell, Amanda B., Vanessa A. Boese, Seraphine F. Maerz, Patrik Lindenfors and Staffan I. Lindberg. “Establishing pathways to democracy using domination analysis.” British Journal of Politial Science, 52 (3), 2022. Access here.

  • Edgell, Amanda B., Jean Lachapelle, Anna Lührmann, and Seraphine F. Maerz. Pandemic Backsliding: Violations of Democratic Standards During Covid-19. Social Science and Medicine, 285, 2021. Access here.

  • Boese, Vanessa A., Amanda B. Edgell, Sebastian Hellmeier, Seraphine F. Maerz and Staffan I Lindberg. “How democracies prevail: democratic resilience as a two-stage process.” Democratization, 28(5), 2021. Access here.

  • Hellmeier, Sebastian, Rowan Cole, Sandra Grahn, Palina Kolvani, Jean Lachapelle, Anna Lührmann, Seraphine F Maerz, Shreeya Pillai, and Staffan I Lindberg. State of the world 2020: Autocratization turns viral. Democratization (Editor invited), 28(6):1053–1074, 2021. Access here..

  • Maerz, Seraphine F., Anna Lührmann, Sebastian Hellmeier, Sandra Grahn, and Staffan I. Lindberg. State of the World 2019: Autocratization Surges - Resistance Grows. Democratization (Editor invited), 27:6, 2020. Access here.

  • Maerz, Seraphine F. “The Many Faces of Authoritarian Persistence. A Set-Theory Perspective on the Survival Strategies of Authoritarian Regimes.” Government and Opposition, 55(1): 64-87, 2020. Access here.

  • Maerz, Seraphine F. and Carsten Q. Schneider. “Comparing Public Communication in Democracies and Autocracies - Automated Text Analyses of Speeches by Heads of Government.” Quality and Quantity, 54: 517-545, 2019. Access here.

  • Maerz, Seraphine F. “Simulating Pluralism: The Language of Democracy in Hegemonic Authoritarianism.” Open Access in Political Research Exchange. 2019. Access here..

  • Maerz, Seraphine F. “Ma’naviyat in Uzbekistan: An Ideological Extrication from Its Soviet Past?” Journal of Political Ideologies, 23 (2): 2015-222, 2018. Access here..

  • Schneider, Carsten Q., and Seraphine F. Maerz. “Legitimation, Cooptation, and Repression and the Survival of Electoral Autocracies.” Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft 11(2): 213–35, 2017. Access here.

  • Maerz, Seraphine F. “The Electronic Face of Authoritarianism: E-Government as a Tool for Gaining Legitimacy in Competitive and Non-Competitive Regimes.” Government Information Quarterly 33(4): 727–35, 2016. Access here..

V-Dem Democracy Reports

  • Alizada, Nazifa, Rowan Cole, Lisa Gastaldi, Sandra Grahn, Sebastian Hellmeier, Palina Kolvani, Jean Lachapelle, Anna Lührmann, Seraphine F. Maerz, Shreeya Pillai, and Staffan I. Lindberg. Autocratization Turns Viral, Democracy Report 2021. V-Dem Institute, 2021. Access here..

  • Lührmann, Anna, Seraphine F. Maerz, Sandra Grahn, Nazifa Alizada, Lisa Gastaldi, Sebastian Hellmeier, Garry Hindle, and Staffan I. Lindberg. Autocratization Surges - Resistance Grows, Democracy Report 2020. V-Dem Institute, 2020. Access here..

Policy briefs

  • Commissioned work: Maerz, Seraphine F., Svitlana Chernykh, Constanza Sanhueza Petrarca: Policy Report for the Robert Schumann Center (EUI) and European Commission: “Addressing AI-Powered Threats to Democracy”. 2026. Access here.

  • Garbe, Lisa, Seraphine F. Maerz, and Tina Freyburg. Wie Autokratien im Digitalen kooperieren - und warum das Folgen für die Informationsfreiheit hat. De Facto Online Platform. 2026. Access here.

  • Maerz, Seraphine F. , Amanda B. Edgell, Jean Lachapelle. “Pandemic Backsliding” - Demokratien im Ausnahmezustand während COVID-19. De Facto Online Platform. 2022. Access here..

  • Commissioned work: Policy Report for USAID on e-government (2021, together with Valeriya Mechkova).

  • Edgell, Amanda B., Matthew C. Wilson, and Seraphine F. Maerz. Episodes of Regime Transformation: Assessing Democratization and Autocratization since 1900. APSA - Comparative Politics Newsletter, Spring 2021. Access here..

  • Kolvani, Palina, Martin Lundstedt, Seraphine F. Maerz, Anna Lührmann, Jean Lachapelle, Sandra Grahn, and Amanda B. Edgell. Pandemic Backsliding: Democracy and Disinformation Seven Months into the Covid-19 Pandemic. Policy Brief 25, V-Dem Institute, 2020. Access here..

  • Edgell, Amanda B., Sandra Grahn, Jean Lachapelle, Anna Lührmann, and Seraphine F. Maerz. An Update on Pandemic Backsliding: Democracy Four Months After the Beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Policy Brief 24, V-Dem Institute, 2020. Access here..

  • Lührmann, Anna, Amanda B. Edgell, and Seraphine F. Maerz. Pandemic Backsliding: Does Covid-19 Put Democracy at Risk? Policy Brief 23, V-Dem Institute, 2020. Access here..

Book chapters and reviews

  • Sebastian Stier and Seraphine F. Maerz. Chapter on Computational Methods in Handbook of Comparative Politics (Springer), edited by Marianne Kneuer et al., forthcoming.

  • Maerz, Seraphine F. “The Internet and Autocratization”. Chapter 15 in the Routledge Handbook of Autocratization (edited by Aurel Croissant and Luca Tomini), 2024.

  • Maerz, Seraphine F., Felix Schulte, and Christoph Trinn. “Autocratization and Political Conflict”. Chapter 31 in the Routledge Handbook of Autocratization (edited by Aurel Croissant and Luca Tomini), 2024.

  • Boese-Schlosser, Vanessa A., Amanda B. Edgell, Sebastian Hellmeier, Seraphine F. Maerz, Yuko Sato, Matthew C. Wilson, and Staffan I. Lindberg. “Identifying Episodes of Autocratization”. Chapter 4 in the Routledge Handbook of Autocratization (edited by Aurel Croissant and Luca Tomini), 2024.

  • Maerz, Seraphine F. and Cornelius Puschmann. “Automated Content Analysis for Conflict Research: A Literature Survey.” Book chapter in: Deutschmann E., Lorenz J., Nardin L., Natalini D., Wilhelm A. (eds) Computational Conflict Research. Computational Social Sciences. Springer, Cham. Open Access, 2020, download here.

  • Maerz, Seraphine F. Book review: Rollberg, Peter Laruelle, Marlene (eds.), Mass Media in the Post-Soviet World. Market Forces, State Actors,and Political Manipulation in the Informational Environment after Communism. Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2018. Europe-Asia Studies 71(5): 863-865, 2019.

  • Staffan I. Lindberg, Martin Lundstedt, Nazifa Alizada, Rowan Cole, Lisa Gastaldi, Sandra Grahn, Sebastian Hellmeier, Palina Kolvani, Jean Lachapelle, Anna Lührmann, Seraphine F. Maerz, and Shreeya Pillai. Liberal Demokrati i Riskzonen - autokratisering blir viral. Published in: I Abrahamsson, K., Jansson, P. Åkesson, T. (Red.), Demokratin Som Bildningsväg (s. 269-286). Carlssons Bokförlag., 2022.

  • Seraphine F. Maerz, Anna-Luise Kraayvanger, Simone Bahlo, and Barno Aripova. Beim Uloq (1915), Der Zweifel (1935), Translations from Uzbek. In: Abdulla Qodiriy & seine Zeit. Festschrift für Barno Aripova (ed. by Ingeborg Baldauf et al.). Edition Tethys, 2018.

R packages

  • Maerz, Seraphine F., Kenneth Benoit. quallmer - An R package for Qualitative Analysis with LLMs. 2026. Access here.

  • Maerz, Seraphine F., Kenneth Benoit. quanteda.llm - LLM support for quanteda. 2025. Access here.

  • Maerz, Seraphine F., Amanda B. Edgell, Sebastian Hellmeier, and Nina Ilchenko. Vdemdata - an R package to load, explore and work with the most recent V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) dataset. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, 2025. Access here..

  • Maerz, Seraphine F., Amanda B. Edgell, Joshua Krusell, Laura Maxwell, Sebastian Hellmeier, and Nina Ilchenko. ERT - An R package to load, explore, and work with the Episodes of Regime Transformation (ERT) dataset. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, 2025. Access here.

  • Maerz, Seraphine F. An R package to Assist with Automated Data Collection and Analysis (audacola), 2020. Access here.

Research Projects

Words of Warning: How Illiberal Public Discourse Signals Democratic Decline

I am Chief Investigator of an Australian Research Council (ARC) DECRA project (2026-2028) on how illiberal public discourse signals democratic decline. In this project, I analyze large-scale text data from political speeches, parliamentary debates, and social media to investigate shifting public discourses in several democracies. For further information about this project, see here.

Smart Authoritarianism? Comparing the Internet Strategies of Authoritarian Regimes

I was Principal Investigator and Project Leader of a project on authoritarian Internet strategies (2021-2024), the project was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and affiliated with the Institute of Political Science at the Goethe University Frankfurt (Germany), see also here. Together with my team and in collaboration with Tina Freyburg (University of St. Gallen) and Lisa Garbe (WZB), we released TOSCO2.0, an updated dataset on ownership structures of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), more information here.

Neo-Authoritarianism in Europe and the Liberal Democratic Response (AUTHLIB)

I was a participating researcher in the EU Horizon Europe project AUTHLIB. The project was coordinated by the Central European University (CEU), other participating institutions were Charles University, German Marshall Fund, Sciences Po, Scuola Normale Superiore, University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, University of Oxford, and the University of Vienna. See also the project’s website.

Pandemic Backsliding: Democracy during COVID-19

I was Principal Investigator (together with Anna Lührmann, Amanda B. Edgell, and Jean Lachapelle) of a project on violations of democratic standards for emergency responses during the COVID-19 pandemic, the project was funded by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2020/2021). For further information about this project, see here.

Datasets

ShinyApps and interactive dashboards to explore our datasets

ShinyApps and dashboards are great tools to explore and interactively work with new datasets which is why we developed the following applications along with our datasets:

  • The TOSCO ShinyDashboard (put together with the TOSCO team) provides data on ownership of Internet service providers (ISPs) and several applications to explore these ownership structures and state control over ISPs.

  • The ERT ShinyApp (put together with Sebastian Hellmeier) provides several interactive applications allowing users to flexibly adjust the parameters of the ERT dataset (see below) and test their validity.

Episodes of Regime Transformation (ERT)

Identifies episodes of democratization (liberalizing autocracy, democratic deepening) and autocratization (democratic regression, autocratic regression) in the most recent V-Dem dataset, the dataset is freely available here. We also provide the ERT R package as a user-friendly tool to flexibly work with the dataset.

Citation: Edgell, Amanda B., Seraphine F. Maerz, Laura Maxwell, Richard Morgan, Juraj Medzihorsky, Matthew C. Wilson, Vanessa A. Boese, Sebastian Hellmeier, Jean Lachapelle, Patrik Lindenfors, Anna Lührmann, and Staffan I. Lindberg. Episodes of Regime Transformation Dataset (v15.0). Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, 2025.

TOSCO 2.0

In collaboration with Tina Freyburg (University of St. Gallen) and Lisa Garbe (WZB), we released TOSCO 2.0 (Telecommunications Ownership and Control), an updated dataset on ownership structures of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), more information here.

Pandemic Backsliding

The Pandemic Backsliding project tracks state responses to Covid-19 and their potential effect on the overall quality of democracy within the country. The current version of the data reflects the situation between March 2020 and June 2021. The data is freely available here, more information about the project here.

Citation: Edgell, Amanda B., Anna Lührmann, Seraphine F. Maerz, Jean Lachapelle, Sandra Grahn, Ana Flavia Good God, Martin Lundstedt, Natalia Natsika, Palina Kolvani, Paul Bederke, Shreeya Pillai, Stefanie Kaiser, Abdalhadi Alijla, Tiago Fernandes, Hans Tung, Matthew Wilson, and Staffan I. Lindberg. Pandemic Backsliding: Democracy During Covid-19 (PanDem), Version 5, Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, 2020.

Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem)

I contributed to Version 11.1. of the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset. The V-Dem dataset includes the world’s most comprehensive and detailed democracy ratings. The dataset and associated reference documents are freely available here.

Together with a few colleagues, we put together the vdemdata R package as a user-friendly tool to work with the latest version of the V-Dem dataset.

Citation: Michael Coppedge, John Gerring, Carl Henrik Knutsen, Staffan I. Lindberg, Jan Teorell, David Altman, Michael Bernhard, Agnes Cornell, M. Steven Fish, Lisa Gastaldi, Haakon Gjerløw, Adam Glynn, Allen Hicken, Anna Lührmann, Seraphine F. Maerz, Kyle L. Marquardt, Kelly McMann, Valeriya Mechkova, Pamela Paxton, Daniel Pemstein, Johannes von Römer, Brigitte Seim, Rachel Sigman, Svend-Erik Skaaning, Jeffrey Staton, Aksel Sundström, Eitan Tzelgov, Luca Uberti, Yi-ting Wang, Tore Wig, and Daniel Ziblatt. V-Dem Codebook v11.1, https://www.v-dem.net/. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, 2021.

Teaching

Seminars and lectures

  • University of Melbourne: Quantitative Methods (PhD), Authoritarian Politics (BA, co-coordinator), Decoding Democracy (BA), Communicating Social Science Research (BA Honours), Researching Politics and Policy (PhD), Applied Political Science Project (BA, incl. R coding seminar)
  • Goethe University Frankfurt: Measuring Democracy (MA)
  • University of Gothenburg: Varieties of Democracy (MA, co-coordinator)
  • Bard College Berlin: Introduction to Statistics (BA), Measuring Democracy and Autocracy (BA)
  • University of Freiburg: Democratization & Authoritarianism (BA/MA), Qualitative Methods (MA)
  • Central European University (CEU): Research Design, Set Methods and QCA (Guest lecture), Comparative Politics (TA), Central Asia (TA)

Online methods workshops

Supervision

  • PhD: 3 current (University of Melbourne)
  • PhD external examiner: 2 completed (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Sapienza Università di Roma)
  • MA: 4 completed (University of Gothenburg)
  • Honours: 2 completed (University of Melbourne)

Further information

In 2016, I graduated from the CTL Program for Excellence in Teaching in Higher Education at CEU. Contact me for further material such as my teaching philosophy, sample syllabi, slides or course evaluations.