Political science

The discipline of political science explores the exercise and legitimisation of political power. Those who pursue and exercise power include candidates in elections, members of political leadership bodies, heads of state, appointed leaders in the public sector, government employees, political parties, interest groups, large companies, states and international organisations. At the University of Helsinki, teaching in political science is divided into two study tracks: political and organisational studies and world politics.

Research in political science examines global and international as well as national and local issues. Research topics include phenomena within the public and governmental sphere, such as elections and referenda, and political institutions from the UN and EU to nation states and municipalities. The discipline also investigates political opinions, parties, non-governmental and labour market organisations, civic movements, and the political activities of Finnish and international companies. In addition, research in political science analyses anything from gender equality to populism.

Research in political science has a vivid connection to social philosophy as well as ideological and conceptual history when discussing the field, nature, ethics and other features of politics. At the University of Helsinki, political science is based on a pluralist philosophy and encompasses empirical statistical research as well as social criticism and interpretative research that applies more recent approaches.
De­scrip­tion of the dis­cip­line

What is polit­ical science?

The Finnish (and Swedish) name of the discipline of political science at the University of Helsinki, yleinen valtio-oppi (allmän statslära), is based on the German Allgemeine Staatslehre. The discipline also studies the political aspects of governance and organisations as well as international relations, which are often distinguished from political science and treated as separate disciplines in other countries.

A broad and changing field of research

As an academic discipline, political science is rooted both in social philosophy and in the needs of the late 19th century to educate civil servants for the service of the modern state. However, the areas of research within political science has since expanded considerably. With changes in Finland and the world, research in political science has taken on new issues and phenomena. Current research explores such topics as supranational integration, terrorism, the rise of populism and the effects of social media on democracy. The state, political institutions, public power and international relations have remained subjects of research throughout the discipline’s history. 

Political and organisational studies encompasses politics and governance in the broad sense. The research also examines democracy, political ideologies, comparative politics, political philosophy, and the theories and concepts of politics. Another research topic is the European Union.

Research in world politics examines diplomacy and the formation of the foreign policy of various countries and other actors, the causes of peace, political violence and war, as well as the development of a global political economy and its co-management. Research in world politics covers a wider area than just “international relations”. The focus is not only on international or global politics, but also on political circumstances which permeate or transgress the boundaries of traditional political communities.
Research profile

Permanent teaching and research staff in political science focus on research topics including the following:

  • Political participation and voter behaviour
  • Institutions of politics and governance
  • Democracy and equality
  • Public policies and their instruments, effects and assessment
  • National and global civic movements and organisations
  • Gender and politics
  • Political communication
  • Theory of world politics
Latest research pro­jects

Some of the project names are in Finnish or in Swedish.

  • Diaspora: Politiskt beteende i den finlandssvenska diasporan, Svenska Litteratursällskapet i Finland, leader Staffan Himmelroos, 2019–2022
  • , Koneen Foundation, research project, leader Pertti Ahonen, 2015–2017
  • , leader Emilia Palonen
  • Policy instrumentit ja globaali hallinta, Academy of Finland, academy project, leader Tero Erkkilä, 2013–2018
  • , Academy of Finland, academy project, leader Åsa von Schoultz, 2018–2022
  • , Academy of Finland, academy project, leader Mikko Mattila, 2013–2017
  • Tasapuolisuus vaaliosallistumisessa ja ehdokasvalinnassa, Academy of Finland, akatemiatutkijan hanke, Hanna Wass, 2013–2018 
  • Contention or Consensus? Policy Networks of Climate Change in Finland in a Comparative Perspective, Kone Foundation, project, leader Tuomas Ylä-Anttila, 2014–2018

 
Study opportunities

Political sciene is one of the largest disciplines and study tracks in the Faculty of Social Sciences. Here is the list of all the programmes that offer teaching in political science
De­gree pro­grammes that of­fer teach­ing in polit­ical science
Com­munity re­la­tions and pub­lic en­gage­ment

Political scientists are actively involved in the academic and wider communities

  • Our researchers participate in the applied research and development projects of various funders (e.g., Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, Ministry of Justice, Prime Minister’s Office and Finnish Innovation Fund SITRA) as well as international development projects.
  • Our researchers are actively involved in Finnish and international scholarly organisations and their governing bodies as well as the editorial bodies and referee activities of international scholarly journals.
  • Our researchers participate in a broad range of expert assignments at the University of Helsinki, in scientific administration and in Finnish and international politics.
  • Many of our experts also participate in political parties, trade unions and professional organisations as well as in various non-governmental activities.
  • Our experts have a high profile as analysts and commentators in the media. Many are also active in social media.
  • For information about our events, press releases and media coverage, see the Faculty of Social Sciences News-section.
Blogs, web­sites and so­cial me­dia chan­nels

Finnish and international blogs in political science and its sub-fields:

  • - online journal of the Finnish Political Science Association
  •  (partly in Finnish)
  •  (in Finnish)

Personal blogs by political scientists:
People

Discipline coordinator: Senior University Lecturer 

Director for the Master's Programme in Politics, Media and Communication: University Lecturer 
Professors
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Research (in three projects,  2019-2024, 2019-2021, 2019-2022), and outside projects; supervision of doctoral students; higher education of Master's and Bachelor's students; third function (societal interaction) activities; paid external work (e.g., assessments of applicants to Professor, Associate Professor, Assistant Professor and Docent positions, pre-examiner and official opponent roles concerning Doctoral dissertations)
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AH
+358294124904
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Toimin yleisen valtio-opin professorina politiikan ja organisaatioiden tutkimuksen opintosuunnalla. Olen myös politiikan ja viestinnän maisteriohjelman johtaja.
EP
+358294123571
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Currently working as a Datafication Research Director at the Helsinki Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities (HSSH) and the Helsinki Hub on Emotions, Populism and Polarisation (HEPP) research group leader, I am a political scientist working on interpretive and discoursive approaches in comparative context. My background expertise is Hungarian and Finnish politics as well as European identity through cultural policy. I took my first degree in Ideology and Discourse Analysis at the University of Essex and I have been teaching this in Helsinki since 2006. My current research involves in particular political discourses in social media, and we are going through data from ten countries on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.
+358294124817
TT
+358294124858
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Professor: teaching, research, interaction with society. Also leading Academy of Finland project on transnational non-state representation.
Åv
+358294124822
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Professor of political science
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Hanna Wass is an Acting Professor at the Faculty of Social Science, the University of Helsinki. She runs a work package in the project “Tackling the Biases and Bubbles in Participation (BIBU)”, funded by the Strategic Research Council of the Academy of Finland. In addition, she is a principal co-investigator in the project “Facilitating Electoral Participation from Abroad (FACE)”, funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, and one of three principal investigators of the Finnish National Election Study 2019. She is a co-convenor of the ECPR standing group Public Opinion and Voting Behavior and the chair of the section "Political Behavior" at the American Political Science Association annual conference 2020. Her work on unequal political engagement and representation has been published in leading journals in social sciences, including Public Opinion Quarterly, Social Forces, Political Research Quarterly, European Journal of Political Research and Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. She is a co-author of the book Health and Political Engagement, published by Routledge in 2017.
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+358294123971
University lecturers
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About
Profile I joined the University of Helsinki in 2025, following my position as a University Lecturer in International Relations at Tampere University. Prior to that, I was a Lecturer in International Relations at Coventry University (UK), Teaching Fellow at the University of Warwick (UK), and an Assistant Professor at the University of Tokyo (Japan).  I also held a research fellowship position at the University of Jyväskylä and an honoury research fellowship position at the University of Warwick. I also worked as a programme advisor at the Secretariat of the International Peace Cooperation Headquaters (Cabinet Office), the Government of Japan. I completed my PhD in International Politics at Aberstwyth University (UK). I am currently serving as an associate editor of the journal Citizenship Studies (Taylor and Francis). Reseach Interests My research sits at the intersection between security studies, border and migration studies, and critical International Relations theory. The general thrust of my research is to investigate policies and practices that govern the movement of people and their implications for the idea of political community and belonging. I focus on migration, security, and the politics of aesthetics to examine various bordering practices. In my work, I use concepts such as citizenship, belonging, translation, community, and the gothic. I have undertaken this work in different contexts including Japan, the UK, and Finland and developed three research streams: (1) security and the regulation of borders; (2) solidarity activism and belonging; (3) the politics of aesthetics and senses.  My work appears in journals such as Review of International Studies (in relation to security and migration), Geopolitics (about the concept of home and untranslatability), International Political Sociology (on community and translation), and Security Dialogue (on security and resistance), and Citizenship Studies (on a range of topics including decoloniality, nuclear disasters, and migrant protests). I am also the author of Belonging in Translation: Solidarity and Migrant Activism in Japan (Bristol, 2019), and the co-editor of Critical Imaginations in International Relations (Routledge, 2016, with Aoileann Ní Mhurchú). I am currently co-leading a book project on decoloniality and the aesthetics. 
+358294124794
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Dr Monique Taylor is a University Lecturer and Docent in World Politics in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki, with affiliations at the Lau China Institute, King’s College London and the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm, where she serves as an Associated Senior Research Fellow. She holds a doctorate in International Political Economy from the University of Queensland and has previously worked at several global top 50 universities in Singapore and Australia. Monique specialises in global political economy and international security, examining how shifts in global power, technological change, and state-led economic strategies, particularly those pursued by China, are reshaping the international political and economic order. Her current research focuses on monetary governance, currency internationalisation, and the geopolitical implications of emerging financial technologies, as well as the transformation of regional security architectures in the Indo-Pacific. From 2023 to 2025, she co-coordinated a €1.5 million Horizon Europe Twinning project, The EU in the Volatile Indo-Pacific Region (EUVIP), in partnership with Palacký University in the Czech Republic. Her research has been published by academic presses and in international academic journals including Australian Journal of International Affairs, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, and Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, as well as in edited volumes. Monique's first book, The Chinese State, Oil and Energy Security (2014), received positive reviews in top academic journals including The China Quarterly. Her latest book, China's Digital Authoritarianism: A Governance Perspective was published in August 2022. She is also a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs. In addition, Monique writes for internationally recognised commentary outlets such as East Asia Forum, The Diplomat, and The Interpreter, bringing scholarly insights to wider policy and public audiences on issues of geopolitical and economic transformation. Her recent work has contributed to public debate on universal basic income in New Zealand in the lead-up to the 2026 general election. She has also been interviewed by international media outlets including The Guardian, South China Morning Post, ABC News, CNBC, and Nikkei Asia. After spending her formative years in Argentina, Egypt, Netherlands, UK, Malaysia and Australia, Monique went on to receive her BA/BSc (Hons 1) and MA (Hons 1) in International Relations from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She was awarded a PhD in International Political Economy from the University of Queensland, Australia. During her studies she participated in several exchanges and international summer schools at Freie Universität Berlin, Charles University in Prague, and the University of Montpellier. Since 2019 she has been living and working in Helsinki, Finland. At the University of Helsinki, Monique has taught and coordinated courses including GPC-E314 Historical Development of Economic Theories in Context, PVK-M204 Global Political Economy, GPC-E312 Explaining the Scope for Differences in Global Political Economy, GPC-E315 Governance of the World Economy and its Future, GPC-E350 and E360 MA Thesis Seminars in Global Polltical Economy, PVK-Y202 Globalization and Global Governance, PVK-M202 Foreign Policy and Security, and PVM-M302 Working Seminar (World Politics).
+358294124576
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Teaching (Master and Bachelor -level courses; all courses 5 ECTS): - Social Justice and the City  - City and Culture - Urban Studies Reading Seminar  - Master seminar I & II (Social and Public Policy) - Urban Studies and Planning Research Methods (available to USP Master’s Programme students) - The Land Question and Sustainable Urban Development Ongoing research projects: - “Late Modern Urban Place Promotion and Its Discontents” - “Spaces of Confinement in the Institutions of Care and Control in Finland” - “'Us and Now': The Politics of Populism, Time and Space in Central Eastern Europe"
Academy Research Fellows
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Academy Research Fellow, Political Science
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MY
+358294123836
University Researchers
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Postdoctoral researchers
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JH
+358294124786
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Jon Järviniemi is a postdoctoral researcher in political science at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, and works as a project researcher in the RESLIDE project. He received his PhD from the University of Helsinki in winter 2026. In his dissertation, he examined the use of populist communication within the Finnish party landscape during the 21st century. In the RESLIDE project, he studies politicians’ commitment to democratic norms by analyzing political communication both online and offline. In addition, he examines how crises affect discussions about democracy and the concepts associated with it.
AK
JK
+358294124925
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I work at the intersections of world politics, economics, and philosophy (currently in an Academy Project on International Clearing Union designs). I defended my doctoral dissertation “From Monetary Sovereignty to Macroeconomic Policy Autonomy? Examining Promises, Limitations, and Reform Possibilities of a Nation-State-Centric Macroeconomic Governance Architecture” in March 2024. The Department of Economics and Management of the University of Pavia has awarded this work an international PhD Thesis Prize. My prior MA thesis on a related topic won the Finnish Political Science Association's Award for the Best Master's Thesis in Political Science in Finland in 2015–2016. I hold PhD, MA, and BA degrees in World Politics (with specialisations in Global Political Economy and Global Governance) as well as a further degree in Theoretical Philosophy (with a substantial minor in Economics) from the University of Helsinki. In addition, I have studied or conducted research at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Universidad Nacional de General San Martín in Buenos Aires, and the University of Cambridge.
+358294123941
+358294123853
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Postdoctoral researcher
ZS
+358294120891
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I am a MSCA Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Social Sciences and associated with the Hub on Emotions, Populism and Polarisation (HEPP). In 2026-2028, I am conducting my project “The Translocal Far Right in Europe: Exploring the Mobilization Against ‘Gender’” (REXGEN) under the supervision of Prof. Emilia Palonen. In addition, I am affiliated with the Institute for Research on Far-right Extremism (IRex) at the University of Tübingen, Germany. In REXGEN, I will study far-right mobilisations against gender equality and diversity in Europe. The rising wave of so-called anti-gender activism threatens democratic values and social inclusion, yet its dynamics remain underexplored. Taking a comparative approach, the REXGEN project explores how far-right movements organise locally and transnationally against gender equality and sexual diversity. Using a variety of research methods, REXGEN examines how these groups frame their activism and gain mainstream traction. The project sheds light on this evolving form of far-right mobilisation, providing crucial insights for policymakers, civil society, and researchers aiming to counter the far right in Europe.  About the MSCA Fellowship: The MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship is a highly competitive scheme to support researchers’ careers and foster excellence in research. The Postdoctoral Fellowships action targets researchers holding a PhD who wish to carry out their research activities abroad, acquire new skills and develop their careers.
Doctoral researchers
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EF
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The democratization of Europe after World War II indicates that the EU has the ability and know-how to implement policies that support the gradual transformation of non-democratic societies or fledgling democracies into states with stable politico-legal institutions producing a high democracy, human rights, and rule of law performance. Indispensable to the success of the EU within its borders, what is the prominence of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in EU foreign policy? My research probes EU foreign policy toward Israel-Palestine, examining how—and whether—the EU has leveraged its influence to promote democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in its bilateral relations with the State of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. I also explore ways the EU can optimize its current foreign policy regime. My teaching obligations involve supervising BA thesis research for students in the Bachelor's Programme in Politics, Media, and Communication.
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AK
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JM
+358294123948
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My doctoral research focuses on policy narratives in European pharmaceutical policy.
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I am a Doctoral Researcher in Political Science. My dissertation project investigates the regulatory processes around the public sector automation.  My other research interests include the Ombudsman institutions and modes of accountability.
+358294124924
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I am a doctoral researcher in political science and the consortium coordinator for the SRC-funded project RESLIDE (The resilience of liberal democracy in Finland). My dissertation explores the politico-administrative relationship in Finland, with a specific focus on politicisation within the Finnish civil service. My research interests include governance, democracy, and public leadership.
AR
+358294123832
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I work in the Doctoral programme in Political, societal and regional changes. In my dissertation I examine civil disobedience and shifts in political participation more broadly.
VS
+358294123829
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I am a doctoral researcher in political science. My dissertation examines the development and trends in moral political opinion in Europe and their connection to social trust and political participation.
EV
Contact information

P.O. Box 54 (Unioninkatu 37)
00014 University of Helsinki