Mathis Ebbinghaus

I am a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of Sociology and a Junior Research Fellow at Trinity College. 

During my DPhil in Sociology at Nuffield College, Oxford, I studied causes and consequences of social movements, with a particular focus on the Black Lives Matter movement. For my fellowship, I turn to the other side of the political spectrum by studying far-right activism in the aftermath of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Alongside my work on social movements, my research covers political conflict, the altruistic rescue of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe and collective trauma. I don’t subscribe to any particular methodology but use both quantitative and qualitative tools depending on the research question that sparks my interest.

Although my fellowship is primarily a research position, I am interested in (co-) supervising undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students. During the academic year of 2024/2025, I will convene the second/third-year Political Sociology course.

My sociological research falls into three categories: political sociology, social movements, intergroup relations.

Demographic consequences of social movements: local protests delay marriage formation in Ethiopia, 2024, Social Forces, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soae112

Decoupling social movements from modernity: a critical reappraisal of Charles Tilly’s theory on the origins of social movements, 2024, Theory and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-024-09569-0

The Effect of the 2020 Black Lives Matter Protests on Police Budgets: How “Defund the Police” Sparked Political Backlash, 2024, Social Problems, spae004, https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spae004

Institutional Consequences of the Black Lives Matter Movement: Towards Diversity in Elite Education, 2023, Political Studies Review, 21(4), 847-856. https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221132428