Mattias Lehtinen

Mattias Lehtinen is a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the Helsinki Inequality Initiative (INEQ) and the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki. He specializes in contemporary continental political philosophy, post-phenomenological thought, and critical theory, focusing on political imagination, democratic theory, and political polarization.

• Doctoral Research: Political ontology of democracy through political imagination
• Ongoing Project: "Political Imagination and the Crisis of Political Rationality"
• 2025: Visiting Postdoctoral Scholar at Christian-Albrechts Universität zu Kiel's Department of Political Science

Research Themes:

• Political theory and philosophy
• Theories of democracy
• Affect theory in political contexts
• Philosophy of inequality
• Postfoundational political theory
• Fascism and totalitarianism analysis

Recent Publications (2023-2025) explore political polarization, far-right ideologies, and Castoriadis' frameworks for analyzing modern political crises.