Laura-Elena Sibinescu

I am a post-doctoral researcher based in Helsinki University’s Department of Political and Economic Studies. Currently I am working on data collection and analysis for Whirl of Knowledge: Cultural Populism in European Polarised Politics and Societies a project funded by the Academy of Finland.

In 2018 I defended my doctoral thesis on the loss of democratic quality in Central and Eastern Europe over the last decade, with a focus on post-accession influences of the EU. My other academic interests include democratization, the role of social media in elections and protest, qualitative comparative analysis and topic modeling.

Since 2014, I’ve been expanding my interest in the use of computational methods in political science. A few questions I’m interested in exploring empirically through this methodological approach are: who is the demos of digital democracy? How do politicians and the public co-produce political communication through social media? How well do online/offline repertoires of political action complement eachother and translate between media? And what is the mobilizing potential of social media for political participation, especially in fragile democracies?