Mette Marie Stæhr Harder

Short presentation

Mette Marie Stæhr Harder studies comparative politics with a focus on the Danish Parliament (Folketinget), Greenland, security, political representation, and the role of emotions in politics. Her research addresses questions such as:

• How is Greenland represented in the Danish Parliament?
• How can Greenlandic actors control the Danish government?
• What is the relationship between the formal organization of the Danish Realm (Rigsfællesskabet) and democratic resilience, and what are the implications for security?
• Is democracy equipped to accommodate citizens’ emotions – and how?
• How does the Danish Parliament work with political agendas, and what role do its internal structures and procedures play in this process?

Her article “Pitkin’s Second Way: Freeing Representation Theory from Identity” received the Representation Best Paper Prize 2020.

She is affiliated with the EU-funded project ENCODE, which examines the role of emotions in politics. She has also received funding from the Carlsberg Foundation to study Greenland’s representation in the Danish Parliament (see project “Metropolitan Parliamentary Representation”).

Mette Marie teaches constitutional law and EU constitutional law, gender and human rights, gender, law and politics, as well as sociology of law and legal philosophy at the University of Copenhagen. Previously, she has taught political science at Karlstad University and Texas Tech University.

From 2019 - 2021, she was a Carlsberg postdoctoral scholar at Stockholm University, Department of Political Science.

Other Positions:

• Founder and former Co-Chair of the International Political Science Association Research Committee on Indigenous Politics (RC53) (2022–2025)
• Editorial Board Member, Nationalism & Ethnic Politics