Publications

In peer-reviewed journals

• Dean G. Schafer, Seraphine F. Maerz, Carsten Q. Schneider, and Alexandra Krasnokutskaya. “Strongmen” Don’t Redistribute: Illiberal Leaders’ Effective Production of Economic Inequality. Forthcoming in Politics and Governance.

• 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 Papers and other publications

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

• 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

• 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., 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., Kenneth Benoit. quanteda.llm - LLM support for quanteda. 2025 (work in progress). Access here.

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