Before joining ZOiS’s research cluster Political Economy and Integration as a postdoctoral researcher in March 2025, Sebastian completed a PhD at Friedrich Schiller University Jena on the political economy of state strategies and regional development projects in the Russian Far East (2007-2022). From 2018 to 2023, he was a Research Fellow at Freie Universität Berlin. He also held positions as Visiting Scholar at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin (2020-2023), Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Sussex (2018), and Research Fellow in the Department of International Relations at the Leipzig University (2016-2018). Sebastian studied Political Science, International Relations and History in Leipzig and Moscow.

• Adaptation Brokers: Global Structural Change and the Political Economy of Russian Sovereigntism (SOVBROKE)

• Political economy of Russia
• Sino-Russian relations
• Global political economy, esp. state-led development, resource extractivism, theory and practice of (resource) rents, heterodox perspectives on the history and theory of capitalism
• Conflict sociology, sovereigntism and political mobilisation in post-socialist countries
• Elite sociology and patron-client relationships
• Quantitative and qualitative approaches to social network analysis
• Historical sociology of international politics

Selected Publications