People

Heikki Patomäki

Professor of World Politics and Global Political Economy

Founding member of the Helsinki Centre for Global Political Economy

Patomäki’s research interests include philosophy, methodology of social sciences, economic theory, global political economy, big history, futures studies, and global justice and democracy. He has published more than 20 books and 200 research papers as well as numerous popular articles and blogs. Patomäki’s most recent are World Statehood. The Future of World Politics (Springer 2023), Debating the War in Ukraine: Counterfactual Histories and Future Possibilities (with T. Forsberg, Routledge 2023, open access), and The Three Fields of Global Political Economy (Routledge 2022). For more details about his works and career, see this interview, and 2.

Matti Ylönen

University Lecturer in World Politics 

Founding member of Helsinki Centre for Global Political Economy

Ylönen’s work – published in journals such as New Political Economy, Review of International Political Economy and Transnational Corporations Journal – has focused on a range of different topics such evolutionary approach to corporate power, global tax avoidance and its facilitators, global development issues, the history of economic ideas, and the ways in which the growing role of policy consultancies shape our democracies. Ylönen has published several books in Finnish, the examining the power of public affairs consultancies (co-authored with M. Mannevuo and N. Kari). University of Helsinki granted the 2019 PhD dissertation award to Ylönen and one of his articles won the 2015 Amartya Sen Prize awarded by Yale University.

Hanna Kuusela

Academy Researcher (Tampere University)

Founding member of Helsinki Centre for Global Political Economy

Kuusela is a Cultural Studies scholar working in the intersection of culture and economy. She currently works as an Academy Research Fellow at the Tampere Research Centre for Journalism, Media and Communication, at Tampere University. Her research interests include economic elites, cultural analysis of capital, consultocracy, and contemporary cultural formations. Kuusela’s multidisciplinary work has appeared, for example, in such journals as Governance, New Formations, Sociological Review, Sociology and Critical Arts. She has also published several monographs in Finnish, for example, . Award-winning scholar, she is also a member of the Academic Board at Tampere University and an active advocate of democratic decision-making in universities.

S.M. Amadae

University Lecturer in World Politics

S. M. Amadae is currently a university lecturer in world politics at the University of Helsinki, Finland and a Fellow working as a research affiliate at the Center for the Advanced Study of the Social and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. She also holds appointments as at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge; and in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT.  Her publications include (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and the award winning (University of Chicago Press, 2003).  Amadae recently contributed to (SIPRI, 2019) from the perspective of reducing existential risk of accidental or inadvertent nuclear war. She also published the collected volume with students from the MA program in .  Other research initiatives include developing a model to better understand a mechanism of structural discrimination and evolutionary principles of domination.

Teivo Teivainen

Professor of World Politics

Teivo Teivainen is Professor of World Politics at the University of Helsinki. His research interests include economism, freedom, colonialism, corporate power, and the future of democracy. His book Enter Economism, Exit Politics received Hopkins Award of the American Sociological Association and his article coauthored with Matti Ylönen, “Politics of Intra-Firm Trade”, got Amartya Sen Prize of Yale University. In Finland, he has received J.V. Snellman Public Information Award; Pro-Feminism Award; and Academy of Finland Recognition Award. He currently leads an Academy of Finland project on transnational non-state representation and works on Finnish corporate extractivism in Uruguay.

He has chaired the International Political Economy Section of the International Studies Association. His past duties also include Head of the Political Science Department at University of Helsinki; Visiting Professor of Economics at Catholic University of Peru; Distinguished Visiting Professor in International Development at Saint Mary’s University in Canada, apart from other visiting professorships in North and South America. He regularly appears on TV and radio programs, and his recent interviews range from the New York Times, Financial Times or Xinhua News to smaller media outlets in various parts of the world. His most recent publications include an of articles on the the World Social Forum.

Monique Taylor

University Lecturer in World Politics

Monique Taylor is a University Lecturer in World Politics at the University of Helsinki. Her research lies at the intersection of global political economy and international relations. Taylor focuses on questions of governance and institutional change, which she has examined with reference to aspects of China’s political economy, Southeast Asian regionalism and the evolving policy agenda of the BRICS. Her latest research looks at cyber sovereignty and the growth of the digital economy in China. Taylor’s work has been published in a range of international scholarly journals and edited volumes. In 2014, her book titled was published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book received positive reviews in top academic journals including The China Quarterly. Her most recent provides a governance perspective on China’s digital authoritarianism.

Taylor has previously held the positions of research fellow at the National University of Singapore, postdoctoral fellow at Nanyang Technological University, and lecturer at the University of Queensland. She received her PhD in International Political Economy from the University of Queensland.

William Mitchell

Professor of Economics (University of Newcastle)

Docent in Global Political Economy (University of Helsinki)

Professor William Mitchell holds the Chair in Economics and is the Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), an official research centre at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He also is the Docent Professor in Global Political Economy at the University of Helsinki. He is one of the founders of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). He has an established record in macroeconomics, labour market studies, econometric modelling, regional economics and economic development. He has received regular research grant support from the national competitive grants schemes in Australia and has been an Expert Assessor of International Standing for the Australian Research Council.

 He is the author of various books, including (Elgar, 2015) and (Pluto, 2017). His most recent book - - (with L.R. Wray and M. Watts) was published by Macmillan in February 2019. He has published widely in refereed academic journals and books and regularly is invited to give Keynote conference presentations in Australia and abroad. He has extensive experience as a consultant to the Australian government, trade unions and community organisations, and several international organisations (including the European Commission; the International Labour Organisation and the Asian Development Bank).

Magnus Ryner

Professor of International Political Economy (King’s College London)

Research Director, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (2020-2021)

Magnus Ryner is Professor of International Political Economy and former Head of Department of European and International Studies at King’s College London. His research interests include international political economy and social theory; the political economy of work, welfare, and inequality; European political economy and the political economy of the EU as well as Europe in the emerging world order. His most recent monograph is (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) (with Alan Cafruny). He is using his tenure as Research Director at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies to launch a new research project titled Lost Decades: Germany, the United States and the Political Economy of Transatlantic Relations after Bretton Woods. He is co-editor-in-chief of the new journal Global Political Economy and a member of the Steering Committee of the EuroMemo Group.

Laura Nordström

Postdoctoral researcher in World Politics and Global Political Economy

Laura Nordström is a Postdoctoral researcher specialising in EU research and global political economy at the University of Helsinki (World Politics). Her current research focuses on big tech EU lobbying in the project . Her previous research was onand she has successfully conducted 136 high-profile interviews with EU officials and decision-makers. Laura was the editor of  journal in 2023-2024. She is also a member of the . Before entering the academia, she acquired extensive work experience in politics, e.g., in the European Parliament and the Finnish Foreign Ministry and the Parliament.

Konsta Kotilainen

Postdoctoral researcher in World Politics and Global Political Economy

Konsta Kotilainen is working at the intersections of world politics, economics, and philosophy. Currently, he is a postdoctoral researcher in the Academy Project “How to overcome tendencies toward trade wars? A multi-method study about institutional designs for an International Clearing Union”. Kotilainen defended his extensive doctoral dissertation  in March 2024. The dissertation passed with distinction and the Department of Economics and Management of the University of Pavia has awarded it an international PhD Thesis Prize. With a , Kotilainen will turn this dissertation into a peer-reviewed book. 

In addition to his alma mater, the University of Helsinki, Kotilainen has studied or conducted research at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Universidad Nacional de General San Martín in Buenos Aires, and . Kotilainen is the current editor of the .