Sebastian Stier

Sebastian Stier

Sebastian Stier is a PhD student at the Research Training Group „Policy performance of autocratic and democratic regimes“ and a member of the Internet Governance Group at the Institute of Political Science. In his research he focuses on Comparative Politics, Political Communication and Computational Social Science.

Dissertation

The internet is often regarded as a “liberation technology” that suits democracies better than autocracies which are generally seen as “enemies of the internet”. In his PhD project titled “Internet governance, internet politics and regime type – a comparison of democracies and autocracies”, Sebastian Stier analyzes how political actors in different regime types react to the political changes induced by the internet. The dissertation relies on theoretical approaches of comparative politics and communication studies. Empirically, it applies statistical analyses at the macro level to analyze the relationship between regime type, internet governance and online communication.

Publications

Stier, Sebastian (2015): Strukturbedingungen im Online-Wahlkampf: USA und Deutschland im Vergleich. In: Bieber, Christoph/Kamps, Klaus (Eds.): Die US-Präsidentschaftswahl 2012. Analysen der Politik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 363–382.

Stier, Sebastian (2015): Democracy, Autocracy, and the News: The Impact of Regime Type on Media Freedom. Democratization 22 (7), 1273-1295.

Stier, Sebastian (2015): Political Determinants of E-Government Performance Revisited: Comparing Democracies and Autocracies. Government Information Quarterly 32 (3), 270–278.

Stier, Sebastian (2012): Die Bedeutung des Internets als Medium der politischen Kommunikation in Deutschland und den USA – eine vergleichende Fallstudie. Studien zur politischen Kommunikation, Vol. 6. Münster: Lit Verlag.