I’m a Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), until September 2023 also a PhD fellow at the University of Copenhagen, Department of Political Science and the Danish Institute of International Studies (DIIS). I’ve had a monthly column on global politics for the Norwegian newspaper Klassekampen since 2020 (2017-2020 for Dagsavisen), and was between 2018 and 2024 Editor in Chief of the Scandinavian-language International Relations journal Internasjonal Politikk. I’m also a board member of the Human Rights House Foundation (2018-). I have lived/studied/worked in Wales, Egypt, the US, Russia, Kazakhstan, England, Tajikistan and Denmark, but am now permanently based in Oslo, Norway.

I work theoretically and empirically on questions of global order and global governance, ideology and ideological contestation in world politics, the function of different liberalisms in international politics historically and at the present time, the state as an international legal and political subject in the 20th and 21st century, tensions between liberal-democratic values and security and warfare, (Western) liberal exceptionalism and self-images and their consequences in relation to global governance, the global ideologies and networks of ‘illiberal’, reactionary, Far Right, and postliberal forces, non-Western and radical right perspectives on global order and liberalisms, and the different meanings of sovereignty, morality, and (mis)recognition in global politics. I am particularly interested in social and political theory related to the international sphere, global order, ideology, and international idea(l)s of the state.

I have since 2017 been a part of international research projects and research networks that look at the implications of Far Right, ‘illiberal’, postliberal, and reactionary visions of global order, focusing particularly on the Far Right and ‘New Right’s’ international ideology, visions, and relationship to different global liberalisms in the US, Russia, and Europe, and non-Western ‘reactionary’ perspectives on global order and liberalisms and their wider significance in relation to global governance and order. In short, my empirical work deals particularly with critically examining both the historical and present-day function of different global liberalisms as ideologies and dominant liberal state ideals in global politics, and ‘illiberal’, postliberal, reactionary, and Far Right international ideologies and global ideas, and their implications for global order and domestic politics. With the latter, I am particularly interested in what arises from shared critique of a particular form of liberal ideological Western hegemony in global politics across the West/non-West divide, and how to analytically separate that from shared commitments within global order.

My doctoral thesis, a monograph (2018-2022, defended after maternity leave September 2023), is titled Towards a Social Theory of International Ideology, Ideological Scripts, and Counter-Ideology. Rethinking ‘Liberal International Order’ and the Far Right’s critique. How does ideology work in relation to the state as a legal and political subject and the international as a distinct realm, and what specific forms of resistance does the dominance of an ideology create that is distinct from other forms of resistance (counter-hegemony, counter-conduct, counter-revolution)? Theoretically, it is about understanding how ideologies as realized ideal world views function in structuring the international through the state as an international legal and political subject - and how projects of resistance differ depending on what they negate, both in form, content, and consequences, theorizing the ‘counter-idelogical’ as a distinct and globally uniting logic to that of other negative forms of resistance.

Empirically, I historicize specific forms of dominant liberal international ideologies after 1945 and what I theorize more broadly as counter-ideological movements. What characterized the dominant liberal internationalism of the post-1945 UN Charter era, what structures and relations of power did it reproduce, and what changed (and didn’t change) within international society after 1989 with the declared End of History? Here, I historicise and critique the idea of there being ‘one liberalism’ that has structured global relations, showing how there have been highly divergent liberalisms at play as dominant ideologies in their influence on international institutions and practices. For the counter-ideological movements I look at the Far Right’s internationalism in the US, Russia, and Europe, their ideological critique and their ideological visions, and how where that intersects with other prominent so-called reactionary perspectives on global order and the dominance of Western liberalism, looking specifically at Russian and Chinese discourse.What do Far Right, postliberal, ‘illiberal’, and reactionary movements entail for global order and liberal internationalism, and how are global liberalisms implicit in the reproduction of their own crises?

The thesis and my work is theoretically situated in interdisciplinary dialogue with global historical sociology, international relations theory, social theory, critical international law, and realist political philosophy. I am especially interested in the implications of thinking through the world on sociologically materialist terms, with a particular attention to ideology. In relation to political theory, the thesis deals with the concepts of forms of resistance, ideology and ideology critique, and realist and radical politics.

I was part of the Velux-funded research project ‘World of the Right’ at DIIS (led by Vibeke Schou Tjalve), and led a multiyear policy research project at NUPI for the Norwegian Ministry of Defence on Far Right and New Right international ideologies and networks in Europe, Russia and the US, and their implications for global order (2018-2023). At NUPI I am now part of the project ‘A Conceptual History of International Relations’ (CHOIR) funded by the Norwegian Research Council, as well as ANGER, on anger in global politics, also funded by the Norwegian Research Council.

Please follow the links above to see academic publications, my column on international affairs [in Norwegian, some available through external translation in Danish and English], work in progress and more. I can be reached at mh@nupi.no.