Dr. Linus Westheuser

Linus Westheuser is a political sociologist researching political conflicts and their roots in social inequality. At the MPI, he works as a Senior Researcher and coordinator of the research area “Social and Political Conflicts.” Together with Steffen Mau and Thomas Lux, he is currently working on the project "New inequalities, new cleavages?". The first result of this project was the book “Trigger points. Inequality and Political Polarization in Contemporary Society“. Their more recent research looks at the conditions under which social change is perceived as overwhelming and how this fuel social conflicts.

In his research, Linus Westheuser looks at class differences in political reasoning and relations to the political system, changes in the conflict structures of Western societies, as well as the politicization and depoliticization of social inequality. He works mainly qualitatively and tries to identify how life in unequal societies shapes political worldviews. He draws inspiration from the work of Pierre Bourdieu, political science research on cleavages, and the newer sociology of morality, among others. How are shifts in large-scale conflict structures articulated in the everyday life of citizens? How do lifestyles, group identities, and everyday morality shape views on politics? What does “politics” actually mean for members of different classes? These are some of the questions that motivate his research. Thematically, he focusses on the demobilization and remobilization of class conflicts as well as struggles over inequality, social change, and climate protection.

Before joining the Institute, Linus worked as a postdoc at Humboldt University Berlin. Prior to that, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Zurich and a visiting researcher at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He received his PhD from Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence in 2022. For his BA and MA, Linus studied Sociology, Political Science, and Philosophy at Humboldt University Berlin, King’s College London, and the École Normale Supérieure Cachan.

You can find more information under: www.linuswestheuser.com