Mads

Ejsing

PhD

Postdoctoral researcher, Centre associate

mads.ejsing@su.se

+4542653275

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Profile summary

  • Democratic theory
  • Environmental politics
  • New materialism
  • The Anthropocene
  • Posthumanism
  • Deliberative mini-publics
  • Climate justice


Mads Ejsing’s research revolves around the intersections of democratic politics and climate justice, with a particular focus on democratic innovations such as citizens’ assemblies and more-than-human perspectives

Mads Ejsing is currently researching the role of climate assemblies as a new type of democratic innvoation that aim to address societal polarization and promote more transformative and citizen-led climate policies. He is the PI of the Carlsberg-funded research project Democratic Innovations and Social Tipping Points: Can Citizens’ Assemblises Create Systemic Change? (2025-2027).

Before coming to Stockholm Resilience Centre, he was involved in two research projects at the University of Copenhagen, the Democratic Innovations in the Green Transition (2020-2024) and the Climate Justice Temporalities in Denmark (2023-2025) projects.

Ejsing’s research approach is collaborative and interdisciplinary, drawing on his training witin political science, political theory, and environmental humanities, while building bridges with other disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, geography, philosophy, STS, and political ecology.

He has a particular interest in methodologies that combine conceptual and ethnographic research with speculative and explorative practices. His previous research involved narrative ethnography, participatory workshops, and creative storytelling to imagine alternative democratic futures.

Ejsing has taught and supervised students in several disciplines across the social sciences, contributing to courses on climate politics, environmental justice, and democratic theory. His teaching emphasises experiential and critical learning, drawing on case studies and encouraging students to link theory with pressing political challenges.

Over the years, he has collaborated closely with government actors, NGOs, and social movements working on democratic innovations, climate justice, and transformative governance. He currently serves at the head of the expert group to the Copenhagen Citizens’ Assembly (2023-2026).

Key publications

Ejsing, M., Veng, A. and Papazu, I., 2023. Green politics beyond the state: radicalizing the democratic potentials of climate citizens’ assemblies. Climatic Change, 176(6), p.73.

Ejsing, M., 2023. The arrival of the Anthropocene in social theory: From modernism and Marxism towards a new materialism. The Sociological Review, 71(1), 243-260.

Ejsing, M., 2024. Why the turn to matter matters: A response to post-Marxist critiques of new materialism. Thesis Eleven, 181(1), 56-71.

Ejsing, M., Tønder, L., Jensen, I.H.B. and Hansen, J., 2025. Do we have time for democracy? Climate action and the problem of time in the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene Review, 12(1), pp.63-78.

Ejsing, M., 2023. Living with others: On multispecies resurgence in the altered forest landscapes of the Anthropocene. Journal of Political Ecology, 30(1), pp.316-334.

 

Publications by Ejsing, Mads

New Materialism

Journal / article | 2025

Mads Ejsing. 2025. New Materialism. Environmental Humanities Glossary. University of Copenhagen.

In the not-so-distant past, much of the humanities and social sciences treated the material world – the stuff of rocks, rivers, bones, and buildings – as passive scenery. Nature was the backdrop. Humans were the actors. We built, interpreted, imagined, and destroyed, while the world around us mostly reacted, inert and voiceless. But what if matter matters more than we thought? Emerging in the early 2000s, but drawing from a...

Citizen Assemblies: Deliberative Mini-Publics for a Sustainable Future

Report | 2025

Mads Ejsing. 2025. Citizen Assemblies: Deliberative Mini-Publics for a Sustainable Future. A Climate for Sufficiency: 1.5-Degree Lifestyles Report.

To enable “immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors” of society (IPCC ), there is a need to change societal norms and behaviour. Unfortunately, just when structural changes are needed the most, trust in governments is historically low, and many citizens feel that the current systems do not work for them (OECD 2024). Therefore, there is also a high risk of political conflict and polarisation around climate pol...

Re-Assembling Democracy: A Nascent Theory of Nonhuman Political Participation

Journal / article | 2025

Mads Ejsing. 2025. Re-Assembling Democracy: A Nascent Theory of Nonhuman Political Participation. Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory. https://doi.org/10.3167/th.2025.7218303

This article explores the concepts of political participation through the lens of new materialism and critical democratic theory. It argues that the concept of political participation must be expanded beyond rational and reflective actions by human beings in order to better encompass the agency of nonhuman entities. Drawing on the work of Jane Bennett, Bonnie Honig, Noortje Marres, and others, the article offers a new theoreti...

Do we have time for democracy? Climate action and the problem of time in the Anthropocene

Journal / article | 2025

Mads Ejsing, Lars Tønder, Ingrid Helene Brandt Jensen, Janus Hansen. 2025. Do we have time for democracy? Climate action and the problem of time in the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196241279564

The urgency of climate change has brought democracy to a critical juncture. Existing democratic systems struggle to address the pressing time frames required for effective climate action. This article explores a fundamental shift in temporal orientation caused by climate change. Democracy’s linear and progressive image of time clashes with the expanding scales of temporality, encompassing both planetary and microscopic process...