ELSA KUGELBERG

I’m a political theorist at the University of Oxford.

I specialise in normative political theory and normative ethics; I study what it means for the state and major institutions to exercise power over individuals, how that power can be justified to us, and what we owe to each other.

I’m a Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow in Politics, at Nuffield College and the Department of Politics and International Relations. In November 2023, I received my DPhil (PhD) in Politics (Political Theory) from the University of Oxford, for which I was supervised by Zofia Stemplowska and Jonathan Wolff. I was also trained at Stanford University, London School of Economics (MSc Philosophy and Public Policy), and Uppsala Universitet (BSocSci Politics and Law). My doctoral research was generously funded by the United Kingdom Arts and Humanities Research Council.

My areas of specialisation are political philosophy, contemporary political theory, feminist theory, political theory of digital technology, philosophy of sex, and philosophy of public policy. My areas of competence include ethics, aesthetics and philosophy of social science.

I am a member of Oxford Center for the Study of Social Justice and affiliated with the Machine Intelligence and Normative Theory Lab at Australian National University, and the Ethical Dating Online research network.

My research interests can be divided into three major subfields. First, I have an interest in the relationship between politics, feminism, and intimacy. I am particularly interested in how theories of justice handle the interactions between the intimate spheres, such as the sexual domain, and the basic structure of society. In my current book project, Just Sex, under formal consideration by Oxford University Press, I draw on empirical research and social theory to develop a feminist theory of social justice for the sexual sphere.

The second is situated in the political theory of digital technology. In this project, I explore how novel technologies and their owners exercise power over individuals and society. In particular, I am interested in the digital private spheres, and technologies of intimacy (i.e. dating apps, private messaging). This project outlines the duties of the state, tech corporations, and users, in relation to this area of digital technology.

The third major research interest concerns contractualism as a moral and political theory. In particular, I explore the ethical and political implications of understanding what we owe to each other as dependent on our social context. One of my project explores claims and duties under conditions of social uncertainty; how social change affects what expectations are reasonable to hold about the future, and how this impacts what we can ask of others. Another outlines the duties of policymakers in the presence of unjust social norms and in pandemics.

My research has been published or is forthcoming in American Political Science Review, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, European Journal of Political Theory, and Journal of Medical Ethics. You can read the abstracts here.

I am a contributing writer and a columnist for Scandinavia’s largest morning paper, Dagens Nyheter, where my editorials, essays, and critique have regularly appeared since 2013. Before I started my DPhil, I was an editor at a publisher focused on popular philosophy and science. I have also worked as a political advisor and speechwriter in the Swedish Parliament, focusing in particular on foreign affairs, defence policy, and the European Union. Before that I was a trainee at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

My CV and academic references can be provided on request. You can contact me at elsa.kugelberg[at]politics.ox.ac.uk. Speaking or writing proposals are very welcome.