Photo of Mads Ejsing

Mads Ejsing

Assistant Professor

I am a political theorist researching how democracies can navigate climate change and ecological crisis.

Democracy in a time of climate and ecological crises.

I am affiliated with the Green Democratisation Laboratory as a tenure-track assistant professor under the Mistra Environmental Research Leaders initiative (2026-2032). I am also the PI of a Formas-funded project on Democratic Innovations for Climate Transformation (2026-2029).

Background

Originally trained as a political theorist with a PhD (2021) from University of Copenhagen, but now working as an interdisciplinary environmental social scientist, I combine theoretical inquiry with in-depth ethnographic fieldwork across several interconnected research themes.

Research theme I: Climate politics & just transition

One strand of my research asks how the benefits, burdens, and recognition at stake in climate politics are distributed unevenly across society — and what a just climate transformation would require in practice. This work looks closely at how justice claims are made, contested, and often narrowed in the process of translating them into policy, drawing on case studies of Danish and Nordic climate governance.

Research theme II: Democratic innovations & citizen participation

A second strand of my research explores how recent democratic innovations, such as climate citizens’ assemblies and new green movements, reshape contemporary democracies. A key aim is to understand when and how new participatory formats lead to genuine citizen empowerment and hold potentials for long-term political transformations and systemic change.

Research theme III: New materialism & more-than-human politics

A third strand of my research draws on new materialist and more-than-human political theory to ask who and what counts as a political subject under conditions of ecological crisis. This includes exploring how nature — nonhuman animals or ecosystems — might be represented within legal, civic, and deliberative institutions, moving beyond a purely anthropocentric model of democracy.

Across these different strands of research, the core question remains: How can democratic institutions and practices be reshaped to meet the demands of the climate and ecological crisis, without abandoning a commitment to collective and inclusive decision-making?

Publications

Article in journal

Salvatore Paolo De Rosa, Anna Kirstine Schirrer, Mads Ejsing, Stefan Gaarsmand Jacobsen (2026) A multiscalar framework for assessing climate politics from a justice perspective: the case of Denmark Environmental Politics, p. 1-23 https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2026.2717841
Mads Ejsing (2026) Social tipping points revisited: The epistemic drift from complexity to control Environmental Science and Policy, Vol. 182, p. 104439-104439, Article 104439 https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104439
Max Mailund, Dorte Nita Simonsen, Mads Ejsing (2025) Toxic displacements: An environmental justice perspective on a chemical waste site in Denmark Political Geography, Vol. 116, p. 103255-103255, Article 103255 https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2024.103255
Mads Ejsing (2025) Re-Assembling Democracy: A Nascent Theory of Nonhuman Political Participation Theoria, Vol. 72, p. 39-55 https://dx.doi.org/10.3167/th.2025.7218303
Fernando Racimo, Ekaterina Chertkovskaya, Rebecca Leigh Rutt, Mads Ejsing (2025) Degrowth and decolonisation in academia: Intersecting strategies towards transformation Degrowth Journal, Vol. 3 https://dx.doi.org/10.36399/degrowth.003.01.09
Mads Ejsing (2024) Why the turn to matter matters: A response to post-Marxist critiques of new materialism Thesis Eleven, Vol. 181, p. 56-71 https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/07255136241240086
Mads Ejsing, Lars Tønder, Ingrid Helene Brandt Jensen, Janus Hansen (2024) Do we have time for democracy? Climate action and the problem of time in the Anthropocene The Anthropocene Review, Vol. 12, p. 63-78 https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20530196241279564
Mads Ejsing, Niklas Olsen, Stefan Gaarsmand Jacobsen (2024) Dansk klimapolitik i et idéhistorisk perspektiv: Økonomisk modernisering, sociale bevægelser og relativ stilstand siden 1990'erne Slagmark, Vol. 88, p. 173-200
Mads Ejsing (2023) Living with others: On multispecies resurgence in the altered forest landscapes of the Anthropocene Journal of Political Ecology, Vol. 30 https://dx.doi.org/10.2458/jpe.5224
Adam Veng, Irina Papazu, Mads Ejsing (2023) Is Denmark a green entrepreneurial state?: Mapping Danish climate politics between civic mobilization and business cooptation STS Encounters, Vol. 15 https://dx.doi.org/10.7146/stse.v15i2.139817
Mads Ejsing, Adam Veng, Irina Papazu (2023) Green politics beyond the state: radicalizing the democratic potentials of climate citizens' assemblies Climatic Change, Vol. 176, Article 73 https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-023-03550-z
Mads Ejsing (2022) The arrival of the Anthropocene in social theory: From modernism and Marxism towards a new materialism Sociological Review, Vol. 71, p. 243-260 https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00380261221106905
Mads Ejsing, Derek Denman (2022) Democratic politics in virulent times: three vital lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 23, p. 398-420 https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1600910x.2022.2054448
Mads Ejsing (2020) Antropocæne fortællinger: Mindre end én, flere end mange K & K: kultur og klasse : kritik og kulturanalyse, Vol. 48, p. 59-76 https://dx.doi.org/10.7146/kok.v48i129.121478
Mads Ejsing, Lars Tønder (2019) Enriching discourse theory: the discursive-material knot as a non-hierarchical ontology: a reply to Nico Carpentier Global Discourse: A Developmental Journal of Research in Politics and International Relations, Vol. 9, p. 385-389 https://dx.doi.org/10.1332/204378919x15526540593642

Book

Mads Ejsing (2024) Verden er ikke længere den samme: Økologiske krisefortællinger i det antropocæne

Research

CV

2026- Assistant professor, Department of Thematic Studies (Tema M – Environmental Change), Linköping University

2025-2027 Postdoc, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University

2023-25 Postdoctoral researcher, Center for Applied Ecological Thinking, University of Copenhagen

2022-23 Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen

2022
 L4E visiting fellow, Department of Anthropology, McGill University

2017-21
PhD fellow, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen.

2019 Fulbright visiting fellow, Department of Political Science, Brown University

2019 MSc, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen