I hold a PhD from the Department of Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen (UiB). In my dissertation, Representative Democracy and Climate Change, I studied attitudes towards climate policy measures among the public and elected officials in Norway. I examined how representative democracy is when it comes to climate politics, and found that there is generally congruence, but that the preferences of some groups are less well represented than those of others.
My research is mainly based on survey data. I have worked with data from the Norwegian Citizen Panel (Norsk Medborgerpanel, NMP) since 2015 and contributed to the establishment of the Norwegian Panel of Politicians (Norsk Politikerpanel, NPP) in 2018, which includes elected representatives from municipal councils, county councils, the Storting (Parliament), and the Sámi Parliament. Since 2026, I have been a member of NPP’s scientific committee. Both panels are run by DIGSSCORE at UiB and are part of KODEM (Coordinated Online Panels for Research on Democracy and Governance in Norway).
My research interests include attitudes towards climate change and climate policy, political representation, political mobilization, and political participation.
I lead the Research Council of Norway–funded project LANDSCAPE (The impacts of land use conflicts on society and citizens), where we study how local land use conflicts related to the development of wind power, solar power, mining, and data centers are experienced and debated locally, and how these conflicts are connected to attitudes, values, and emotional engagement related to environmental issues, trust in authorities and democratic institutions, as well as participation and citizenship.
I am also work package leader for “street activism” in the Research Council of Norway–funded project TRUST (Protesting Controversial Climate Policies: Avenues of Opposition), where we examine people’s attitudes towards climate activism, in addition to activists’ own perceptions and strategic considerations.
