© Jordis Schloesser

Dr. Linus Westheuser

+49 551 4956-204

westheuser@mmg.mpg.de

Curriculum Vitae

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

Publications

BOOK(S)

Steffen Mau, Thomas Lux & Linus Westheuser (2023): Triggerpunkte. Konsens und Konflikt in der Gegenwartsgesellschaft. Berlin: Suhrkamp.

⸺ SPIEGEL best seller list; best seller list of FOCUS / stern / Börsenblatt
⸺ Best Non-Fiction 2023 by DIE ZEIT / Deutschlandfunk Kultur and Welt / Neue Zürcher Zeitung
⸺ Award “Best Political Book” 2024, Friedrich Ebert Foundation
⸺Reviews see here

English translation forthcoming with Bristol University Press; French translation at Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme

Under contract

Linus Westheuser: Moral Roots of a New Political Cleavage. Workers, Professionals and the Emergence of a New Divide. Under contract at Oxford University Press.

Koen Damhuis, Paulus Wagner, Linus Westheuser & Susi Meret: Discourses About Work and Working People in European Social Democracy, 1945-2025. Under contract at Cambridge University Press.

Steffen Mau, Thomas Lux & Linus Westheuser: Eine neue Große Transformation? Under contract at Suhrkamp.

ARTICLES & CHAPTERS 

Linus Westheuser & Linda Beck (2025): Moral Disapproval. The Political Consciousness of the Demobilized Working Class. Critical Sociology.

Linus Westheuser, Steffen Mau & Thomas Lux (2025): Das Klima der Ungleichheit. Zur sozialen Struktur von Klimakonflikten. Berliner Journal für Soziologie 35(2), 339–354.

Linus Westheuser (2025): Boundaries and Cleavages. Elements of a Cultural Sociology of Political Divides. European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology 12(3), 289–313.

Linus Westheuser & Delia Zollinger (2025): Cleavage Theory Meets Bourdieu. Studying the Role of Group Identities in Cleavage Formation. European Political Science Review 17(1), 110-127.

Koen Damhuis & Linus Westheuser (2024): Cleavage Politics in Ordinary Reasoning. How Common Sense Divides. European Societies 26(4), 1195–1231.

Linus Westheuser & Pierre Ostiguy (2024): The Sociocultural Approach to Populism. Toward a Cultural Class Analysis of Populist Appeals. In: Elgar Research Handbook of Populism, ed. Giorgos Katsambekis and Yannis Stavrakakis. Edward Elgar, 178–191.

Steffen Mau, Thomas Lux & Linus Westheuser (2024): ‘Ja, aber’. Gesellschaftliche Konflikte verstehen. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 76, 207–220

Linus Westheuser and Donatella della Porta (2022): Class Without Consciousness. The Politics of Demobilized Class Societies. Berliner Journal für Soziologie 32(2), 165-172.

Linda Beck & Linus Westheuser (2022) Verletzte Ansprüche. Zur Grammatik des politischen Bewusstseins von Arbeiter:innen. Berliner Journal für Soziologie 32(2), 279-316.

Linus Westheuser (2020): Populism as Symbolic Class Struggle. Homology, Metaphor, and English Ale. Participation & Conflict 13(1) 2020: 256-283.

Linus Westheuser (2015): Männer, Frauen und Stefan Hirschauer: Undoing Gender zwischen Praxeologie und Rhetorischer Modernisierung. GENDER – Zeitschrift für Gesellschaft, Geschlecht und Kultur 3: 109-125.

SPECIAL ISSUE

Linus Westheuser and Donatella della Porta (2022): Class Without Consciousness. The Politics of Demobilized Class Societies. Berliner Journal für Soziologie 32(2), 165-172.

SCIENTIFIC REPORT

Linus Westheuser and Thomas Lux (2024): Class consciousness and voting. Class as a political compass? Berlin: Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

Deutsche Fassung: Klassenbewusstsein und Wahlentscheidung. Klasse als politischer Kompass?

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

• Linus Westheuser & Linda Beck (2025): Redistribution, Recognition and Representation: Workers’ Political Consciousness in Demobilized Class Societies. American Sociological Association, Section on Marxist Sociology Blog.
• Linus Westheuser & Thomas Lux (2025): The German Left Has Lost Its Monopoly on Class Consciousness. LSE European Politics Blog.
• Lea Elsässer & Linus Westheuser (2024): Leute ohne akademischen Hintergrund sitzen kaum noch mit am Tisch. Politische Ungleichheit und die soziale Krise des Parteiensystems. Soziopolis.
• Donatella della Porta & Linus Westheuser (2024): Quanto conta la classe? Strutture e concezioni in mutamento. Parole-Chiave 1/2024.
• Steffen Mau, Thomas Lux & Linus Westheuser (2024): Migration as a Trigger Point? German Research 1/2024, 8-11.
• Linus Westheuser (2024): Climate policies need to centre on social justice to counter far-right populist strategies. Clean Energy Wire.
• Jens Bisky, Steffen Siegel und Linus Westheuser (2022): Klassismus: Die feinen Unterschiede in den Couchecken. Soziopolis.
• Linus Westheuser (2022): This is not America. Politische Polarisierung in Deutschland als Schimäre. Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen 35(2).
• Linus Westheuser (2020): The Symbolic Politics of Populism Reflects the Class Alliances it Seeks to Assemble. LSE Politics Blog.
• Linus Westheuser (2019): The Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, and the Great Recession. Mobilization 24(4): 531-2.
• Linus Westheuser (2018): Doing Gender. [Encylopedia Entry] Gender Glossar.
• Linus Westheuser (2012): “Obviously I’m not a dick, right?” Positioning Male Identities on the Mediated Conversational Floor of a Dating Show. Soziologiemagazin 2, 124-136.

DATA SETS

Steffen Mau, Thomas Lux & Linus Westheuser (2024): Survey Ungleichheit und Konflikt. GESIS, Köln. ZA8826 Datenfile Version 1.0.0, https://doi.org/10.4232/1.14419.

Steffen Mau, Thomas Lux & Linus Westheuser (2025): Triggerpunkte: Konsens und Konflikt in der Gegenwartsgesellschaft. Transkripte der Fokusgruppeninterviews [dataset]. Qualiservice, PANGAEA, https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.975394

WORK IN PROGRESS

Understanding Working Class Politics in the 21st Century: Cultural Dynamics of Realignment, Exclusion, and Heterogeneity. With Koen Damhuis (Utrecht University), Michèle Lamont & Stephanie Ternullo (Harvard).

Toward a Second Wave of Climate Social Policy. With Michael Pahle, Simon Feindt, Antonia Schwarz (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research) & Laura Iozzelli (European University Institute) .

The Moral Economy of Fuel Prices. Interpretive Struggles Around Justice and Blame in the Energy Crisis. With Till Hilmar (University of Vienna).

With Steffen Mau & Thomas Lux (Humboldt University Berlin):

Four Arenas of Inequality Conflict. Social Inequality and Political Divides over Redistribution, Migration, Diversity and Climate Change. R&R.

Trigger Points. The Moral Substructure of ‘Hot Politics’. R&R.

Traditionalisten gegen Modernisierte? Lebensführung und gesellschaftspolitische Polarisierung in Deutschland. R&R.

Change Fatigue: The Structural Causes and Political Consequences of Feeling Overwhelmed by Social Change.