Bio

Jonas Pentzien is a researcher at the Berlin-based Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW), where he investigates and compares conflicts surrounding the rise of the platform economy in different institutional contexts. A political scientist by training, he is interested in the role political institutions play in processes of technology-driven change. What mechanisms do governments employ in order to adapt to and influence these changes? Do these mechanisms differ between countries? Since 2017, Jonas is working specifically on the topic of platform co-ops as part of a five-year long research project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. As part of this project, he tries to identify the framework conditions that allow democratically owned and governed platforms to thrive. Jonas has studied Political Economy and Comparative Politics at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, USA), Free University of Berlin (Germany) and Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain) and has taught classes on the Digital Economy at the Free University Berlin. Currently, he is a reseach affiliate of the Institute for the Cooperative Digital Economy at The New School.