About me
Helge Petersen studied sociology, political science, and political theory in Kiel, Frankfurt am Main, Darmstadt, New York City and Glasgow. Between 2017 and 2022, he completed a Sociology PhD at the University of Glasgow. His PhD thesis is dedicated to the dynamics of state and political responses to racist violence in British post-war history. He analysed this history of violence and conflict as a specific expression of Britain’s postcolonial and post-Fordist transformation in the second half of the 20th century. He put a particular focus on the enduring influence of political-economic crisis tendencies on the political relations of forces in contemporary Britain. Between 2022 and 2024, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Democratic Culture at Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences. In the context of the project “Integrative Democracy Research in Saxony-Anhalt” he examined the history of political conflicts around racist violence since 1989/90. In this context, he engaged with the question how a heterogeneous democratic civil society and public sphere emerged under the precarious conditions of east Germany’s transformation crisis and nationalist political climate in the early 1990s. Furthermore, he was responsible for the operative coordination of the project, which also encompasses research projects on the far right, antisemitism, and Jewish life. Since 2024, he is a postdoctoral researcher at the research area of Political Theory, History of Ideas and Political Culture as well as the coordinator of the International Populism Research Network at Kiel University, Germany. His current research interests lie at the intersection of populism research and crisis theory. In his recent publications, he has used critical-materialist and social-psychological theoretical perspectives to analyse different variants of populism as well as their relationship to authoritarianism and conspiracy thinking.
Publications
PhD Thesis
Petersen, H. (2022): Racism, Crisis and Confrontation: Political Struggles over Racist Violence and State Racism in Britain, 1958-1999. University of Glasgow, online: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/82951/
Articles
Petersen, H./Hecker, H. (2024): On the Elective Affinity between Post-Marxism, Left-Wing Populism and Conspiracist World Views. In: Michael Butter et al. (Hrsg.): Populism and Conspiracy Theory: Case Studies and Theoretical Perspectives. Routledge.
Brungs, J./Hascher, M./Petersen, H. (2024): Zwischen gesellschaftlicher Resilienz und progressiver Veränderung: Praxisbeispiele aus Sachsen-Anhalt. In: Philipp Kaupert & Franziska Richter (Hrsg.): Von Auf- und Umbrüchen: Stimmungsbilder aus transformationserfahrenen Regionen. Brandenburg, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Saarland und Sachsen-Anhalt. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.
Petersen, H./Struwe, A. (2023): Das Unbehagen an der gesellschaftlichen Totalität. Zum gesellschaftstheoretischen Gehalt der Faschismusanalysen des frühen Instituts für Sozialforschung. In: Leo Röpert (Hrsg.): Kritische Theorie der extremen Rechten. Analysen im Anschluss an Adorno, Horkheimer und Co. Transcript.
Reimer-Gordinskaya, K./Quent, M./Petersen, H./Hoffmann, R. (2023): Stellungnahme Sachsen-Anhalt. In: Oliver Decker, Johannes Kiess & Elmar Brähler: Autoritäre Dynamiken und die Unzufriedenheit mit der Demokratie: Die rechtsextreme Einstellung in den ostdeutschen Bundesländern. EFBI Policy Paper 2023-2. Else-Frenkel-Brunswick-Institut.
Petersen, H./Struwe, A. (2022): Totality, Malaise and Agitation: Towards a Critical Theory of Authoritarian Politics. In: Denis Chevrier-Bosseau and Tom Bunyard (Hrsg.): Critical Theory Today: Limits & Relevance of an Intellectual Tradition. Palgrave Macmillan.
Petersen, H./Hecker, H. (2022): A Critique of Left-Wing Populism: Critical Materialist and Social-Psychological Perspectives. In: Michael Oswald (Hrsg.): The Palgrave Handbook of Populism. Palgrave Macmillan.
Pöggel, T. J./Petersen, H. (2020): Kommentar: Zur materiellen und historischen Einbettung von Refugee-Protest. In: Daniel Kersting/Marcus Leuoth (Hrsg.): Der Begriff des Flüchtlings. Rechtliche, moralische und politische Kontroversen. J.B. Metzler.
Legal Notice:
Institute of Social Sciences/Political Science
Olshausenstr. 40
24118 Kiel
Represented by: Prof. Dr. Paula Diehl (Director)
Olshausenstr. 40
24118 Kiel
phone: +49 431 880-5217
mail: contact.populism@politik.uni-kiel.de
Liability for links: Our offer contains links to external websites of third parties, on whose content we have no influence. Therefore, we cannot accept any liability for any external content. The respective provider or operator of the site is always responsible for the content of the linked sites. The linked pages were checked for possible legal violations at the time of linking. Illegal content was not identified at the time of linking.However, a permanent control of the content of the linked pages is not reasonable without concrete evidence of a violation of the law. If we become aware of any infringements, we will remove such links immediately.
Copyright: The content and works on these pages created by the site operators are subject to German copyright law. The reproduction, editing, distribution and any kind of use outside the limits of copyright law require the written consent of the respective author or creator. Downloads and copies of these pages are only permitted for private, non-commercial use.
Insofar as the content on this site was not created by the operator, the copyrights of third parties are observed. In particular, third-party content is identified as such. Should you nevertheless become aware of a copyright infringement, please inform us accordingly. If we become aware of any infringements, we will remove such content immediately.