Editorial staff

Our editorial team consists of extensive expertise and knowledge within the field of political science and more largely in social sciences.

Please see also the letters from the editorial team regarding topical events, open vacancies, matters of the editorial team and previous media appearances.

Politiikasta-lehden vastaava päätoimittaja Mikko Leino

Mikko Leino

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF


Marianne Sandelin

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Marianne Sandelin (M.A) works as a doctoral researcher in the Doctoral Programme of Political, Societal and Regional Change in the University of Helsinki, in the discipline of political history. In her dissertation, she explores the philosophical and intellectual historical roots of European conservatism by examining the political philosophy of Joseph de Maistre – in particular, Maistre’s critique of the Enlightenment’s political rationalism, idealism, and intellectualism as well as his complex relationship with universalism and pluralism. Sandelin’s research interests include for example the Enlightenment, the Counter-Enlightenment, liberalism, conservatism, universalism, and societal polarization. 


Iida-Maria Tammi

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Dr. Iida-Maria Tammi is an International Relations (IR) and critical humanitarian studies scholar. Tammi defended her article-based doctoral thesis at the University of Helsinki in October 2023. The topic of her thesis was aid worker security in conflict-affected areas. Currently Tammi is researching the humanitarian implications of climate-related emergencies. The project is funded by Alfred Kordelin Foundation, and carried out at the Centre for Humanitarian Action in Berlin, Germany.


Hanne Vuorela

Hanne Vuorela

MANAGING EDITOR

Managing editor of Politiikasta is a professional responsible for daily publishing operations and delivery of editorial content in collaboration with editorial staff.
B.Soc.Sci, BA Hanne Vuorela studies journalism in Tampere University. She works also as audio journalist and podcast producer.


Photo Gennady Kurushin

Gennady Kurushin

WEB DESIGNER

M.Sc. Gennady Kurushin is a freelance web designer with extensive experience in graphic design and digital marketing. Kurushin supports the popularization of science and is inspired by team work and opportunities to realize creative ideas.


Board members


Joonas Aitonurmi

MSc Joonas Aitonurmi has studied political science in University of Helsinki. Currently he works as a specialist in public sector. Aitonurmi is pleased to embrace the task of popularizing science as a journalist. In his master thesis, he studied political representation of employer organisations and Finnish forest industry.


Emma Hakala

Emma Hakala, Doctor of Social Sciences, works as a researcher at BIOS Research Unit and is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. Her doctoral dissertation in political history examined the concept of environmental security and the role of international organisations in promoting it in the post-conflict Western Balkans. Hakala’s research interests include environmental and climate security as well as sustainable development.


Julian Honkasalo

PhD Julian Honkasalo works as an Academy of Finland researcher at the University of Helsinki in gender studies. Honkasalo got her PhD under gender studies from the University of Helsinki in 2016 and earned her second PhD in political sciences in the spring of 2018 from The New School for Social Research in New York. Her primary research interests lie in the historical structures of power related to race and gender, biopolitics, the political thought of Hannah Arendtin and non-violent resistance.


Ari-Elmeri Hyvönen

DSocSci Ari-Elmeri Hyvönen is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Jyväskylä. His research interests include political theory, security, and the role of facts in politics. He has previously worked in the University of Tampere, in a research project focused on resilience, funded by the Finnish Government’s analysis, assessment and research activities. He has been a visiting fellow at the University of Verona and Bard College. His publications have addressed post-truth politics, the political thought of Hannah Arendt, and higher education policy, among other issues.


Sigrid Kaasik-Krogerus

D.Soc.Sc Sigrid Kaasik-Krogerus is a university lecturer at the University of Helsinki. Previously she worked as a postdoc researcher at the University of Jyväskylä, in the project called EUROHERIT. The project analysed how the European Union creates a European cultural heritage and how it is utilized in the construction of identities. In addition, Kaasik-Krogerus is interested in media, identities, the EU, Eastern Europe and Estonia.


Jenni Karimäki

Doc.Soc.Sci Jenni Karimäki is a university researcher at the University of Helsinki. Karimäki has specialised in political ideologies, parties and history of ideas and mentalities and in her doctoral dissertation she studied Finnish liberalism and political culture in the 1920s and 1930s. In her postdoctoral research she has been studying the green movement.


Johannes Lehtinen

Johannes Lehtinen (MSSc) is a PhD Researcher at the Faculty of Management and Business in The University of Tampere. His PhD thesis focuses on citizen and civil society participation in EU policy making and democratic legitimacy of European integration. His other research interests include European integration dynamics, political participation and the economic-, climate- and asylum policies of the EU.


Mattias Lehtinen

Mattias Lehtinen (DSocSci) is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Practical Philosophy at the University of Helsinki specializing in political theory. Lehtinen’s doctoral dissertation was on the role of political imagination in democracies and he is now working on a research project dealing with the crisis of political reason. In addition to researching questions concerning political imagination and democracy, Lehtinen’s interests also involve the study of political polarization, antidemocratic political movements, populism, the politics of emotions, political culture and democratic self-defense.


Laura Parkkinen

M.Soc.Sc, MA Laura Parkkinen is a free journalist and researcher, specializing in France and populism. Parkkinen worked as a university teacher at the Universite de Sorbonnessa in 2018-2020. Her dissertation deals with the language of populism.


Kersti Tainio

Kersti Tainio is an art historian and doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki (Doctoral programme in history and cultural heritage). She studies artworks and cultural objects that came to Finland as a consequence of Russian revolutions and ended up in museum collections. She is interested in how material objects convey political history and how art and memory politics are intertwined. Kersti is the curator of the Politiikasta taidetta series together with Taneli Viitahuhta.

Meeri Tiensuu

MSocSc, Meeri Tiensuu is a doctoral research at Tampere University in the field of peace and conflict research. In her PhD she studies the intersection of integration processes, co-existence and beloning through arts-based and co-creative methods. Tiensuu is also interested in the connections between participation, knowledge production and societal activism.


Timo Uotinen

Timo Uotinen (PhD MA FM) is a researcher in literature and philosophy who specializes in Shakespeare’s plays and their afterlife in our modern world. He also explores, through the philosophy of Francis Bacon, Shakespeare’s contemporary, how the mind influences individual and communal action and how art in its various forms helps to understand political and ethical action. Timo is also interested in how social media can act as a mediator of researched information.


Taneli Viitahuhta

Taneli Viitahuhta (MA, doctoral student) is a writer, translator and involved with music. He is currently completing his doctoral thesis on Theodor Adorno’s critique of jazz at the University of Jyväskylä. He has translated Walter Benjamin (Keskuspuisto, Tutkijaliitto 2014) and written on the politicized aesthetics of the Cold War (Free Jazz Communism, Rab-Rab Press 2019). As a saxophonist he performs with such groups as Pug Life and Preerioiden pääelinkeino. Taneli is curator of the Politiikasta taidetta series together with Kersti Tainio.


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