Amanda Margaret Machin

Professor Department of Sociology and Social Work

Email: amanda.machin@uia.no
Phone: +47 38 14 15 50
Mobile phone: +47 92 04 12 29

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Background and experience

February 2026 - Senior Research Fellow, Brussels Institute of Advanced Studies, Belgium.

Oct 2018 – March 2022. Interim Professor of International Political Studies and Research Fellow Witten/Herdecke University, Germany.

Sep 2014 – Sep 2018. Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, Germany.

June 2016 – Dec 2017. Research Fellow, Institute of Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), Potsdam, Germany.

Jan 2007 – June 2014. Visiting Lecturer and Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD) Department of Politics and IR, University of Westminster, UK.

Areas of responsibility

Amanda Machin is a political sociologist with a specialisation in environmental politics and radical democracy. After completing her PhD at the University of Westminster, London with Chantal Mouffe she moved to Germany to take up positions at various universities and research institutes and was awarded an Habilitation from Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen where she was mentored by Nico Stehr. She is interested in the dynamics, identifications, imaginaries, discourses and bodies of socio-ecological and democratic transformation and she has published numerous articles and special issues on these topics with journals such as WIREs Climate Change, The Journal of European Integration, Democratic Theory and Contemporary Political Theory. She has authored five books (three sole authored, two co-authored), and edited three books, including (with Marcel Wissenburg) the Handbook of Environmental Political Theory in the Anthropocene. Amanda is on various advisory boards and has been invited as a speaker and panellist at academic and public events in cities including Wroclaw, Prague, Berlin, Graz, Copenhagen and Vienna. She is also an editor of the (top-tier Q1-ranked) journal Environmental Politics and co-ordinates the project RECODE MLG (funded 3 million euros by Horizon Europe).

Research

Environmental politics and radical democracy; climate discourses, sustainable transformation and political imaginaries; green citizenship; green populism; the politics of statues; protest and performance.

Projects

Research groups

Machin, Amanda; Olsen, Cecilie Sachs; Death, Carl; Diehl, Paula; Hatzisavvidou, Sophia & Marchart, Oliver [Show all 7 contributors for this article] (2026). The turn to the imagination: transformation, politics and limits. Contemporary Political Theory. ISSN 1470-8914. 25. doi: 10.1057/s41296-026-00796-x. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
We are currently witnessing what we refer to in this Critical Exchange as ‘a turn to the imagination’. Across the academy and beyond, the concept of ‘imaginaries’is increasingly used to examine how the imagination is provoked, harnessed and dispersed to encourage or inhibit social, political, economic, technological and cultural transformation. Highlighting the need for critical reflection not only on the possibilities but also the limits of this turn, we explore the role of the imagination and imaginaries in contemporary political theory, analysis and practice. The contributions discuss the mutation of dominant far-right imaginaries; the promise of anti-colonial, postgrowth, ecosocialist, and ecofeminist imaginaries; and the potential for new political means, such as theatre, to expand our imagination and create imaginaries that ‘stick’. The contributions do not offer a single framework for understanding and engaging with the turn to the imagination, but rather provide possible starting points for a diverse, critical and political account of this ‘turn’ and its implications.
Machin, Amanda & Wissenburg, Marcel (2025). Environmental political theory in the Anthropocene: an introduction. In Machin, Amanda (Eds.), Handbook of Environmental Political Theory in the Anthropocene. Edward Elgar Publishing. ISSN 9781802208948. p. 1–8. doi: 10.4337/9781802208955.00005. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
This chapter offers an introduction to, and a brief overview of, the chapters for the Handbook of Environmental Political Theory in the Anthropocene. It describes the emergence of environmental political theory as an established sub-discipline and the response of environmental political theorists to the Anthropocene – the proposed geological epoch that labels the human species as a geological force in its own right. We argue, perhaps provocatively, that if it is taken seriously and critically, the Anthropocene leads to a renewed engagement with ontological, epistemological and ethical categories and the grappling with various descriptive and normative questions. We map out five changes in the sub-discipline: its expansion to consider new topics, a reshuffling of the existing categories, a greater reflexivity of the community of environmental political theorists, a sharpening of their critical responses and a swelling of their number from other parts of the world outside the global north.
Machin, Amanda (2025). Statues and Democracy: The Political Dynamics of Urban Assemblage. Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory. ISSN 0040-5817. 72(183), p. 113–131. doi: 10.3167/th.2025.7218307. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Although they often go unnoticed, the statues that stand in town squares and city parks around the world remain significant in contemporary societies. Statues are highly political artefacts that reflect and reproduce dominant sociopolitical narratives of the past and urban imaginaries of the present and can become the focus of celebration or controversy. This article argues that a statue forms part of an ‘urban assemblage’, comprised of a heterogeneous multiplicity of material objects, inscribed text, historical narratives, living bodies and emotional performances, that emerges through processes of depoliticisation and re-politicisation. Urban assemblages are stabilised to entrench particular social relations but can always be destabilised. Illustrating my arguments with the examples of the Emmeline Pankhurst statue in Manchester and the Edward Colston statue in Bristol, I discuss the movements around urban assemblages and the possibilities of democratic interventions in the city.
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2025). Policy, Performance and Performativity. In Fischer, Frank; Münch, Sybille & Torgerson, Douglas (Ed.), Interpretive Policy Analysis. Edward Elgar Publishing. ISSN 9781802202472. p. 188–199. doi: 10.4337/9781802202472. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
If interpretive policy analysts attend to meaning-making in particular contexts (Yanow, 2007), then interpretation of embodied performances should be part of their repertoire. Discourses, frames, metaphors, storylines, and arguments about public policies do not appear from nowhere but are performed by angry, resolute, or silent actors whose lived experience and physical appearance allow them to convey, hear, change, or suppress a message. What, then, of the role of the body and its performances, that not only communicate ideas to others but also work to configure and even generate meaning? As I have argued elsewhere (Machin, 2022), bodies matter in politics; their fleshy gestures and corporeal features extend, disrupt, and transform the circulation of policy discourses and practices. In this short chapter, I examine the embodied performance at play in public policymaking and the relevance and challenges it poses for policy analysis.
Machin, Amanda Margaret; Ziglioli, Gloria; Schojan, Fabio & Ruser, Alexander (2025). Imaginaries of the sustainable state in Europe: ecological modernity, environmental stewardship, energy security, and green growth. Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy. 21(1). doi: 10.1080/15487733.2025.2566658. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
State governments around the world have pledged to decarbonize their economies and facilitate a sustainability transformation. But transformation requires imagination; the possibilities for the state to promote, forge, or obstruct a path toward a more sustainable future hinge not only on the ability to make strategic policy revisions but more fundamentally on the political imaginaries that help to configure the expectations of policymakers and the public about what is possible and feasible—and what is not. This article offers a comparative analysis of imaginaries of the “sustainable state” appearing in key policy documents and strategies in four countries. Using critical discourse analysis, we map four imaginaries: ecological modernity in Germany; ecological stewardship in Norway, energy security in Italy, and green growth in the UK. The article thus offers insight into the different expectations in relation to agency, technology, temporality, and rationality in driving and maintaining sustainability and reflects upon the impact of these imaginaries. Our analysis indicates that while these imaginaries of the sustainable state vary significantly, they generally promote technological innovation and market mechanisms and cover up some of the inevitable disagreements and challenges of transformation.
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2025). The European Green Deal and the democratic imagination. Journal of European Integration. ISSN 0703-6337. 47(2), p. 155–171. doi: 10.1080/07036337.2025.2455686. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Democracy can be imagined in vastly different ways, and the way it is imagined has implications for political projects and policymaking. In this paper, I assess the particular democratic imaginary that is reflected and reinforced by the European Green Deal (EGD). The EGD emphasizes citizens as a ‘driving force’ of sustainability transition. However, despite the emphasis on active citizens, their participation is circumscribed, since the actual aims and strategies of the EGD are apparently not open for debate. Using critical discourse analysis to interrogate the material surrounding the EGD, I identify some persistent tropes of the democratic imaginary that is found there. I find that the dominant political imaginary of the EGD is one of an ‘inclusive depoliticised democracy’ that engages a wide diversity of citizens in limited discussion. The EGD is placed outside of politics and democracy and becomes a matter of tutored knowledge exchange rather than impassioned engagement.
Muldoon, James; Apostolidis, Paul; Hatzisavvidou, Sophia; Machin, Amanda Margaret & Tønder, Lars (2025). New materialism and the politics of climate action: a critical dialogue: Lars Tønder, Power in the Anthropocene (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2025). Contemporary Political Theory. ISSN 1470-8914. 24, p. 274–297. doi: 10.1057/s41296-024-00742-9. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2024). Radical Performances in Climate Activism. In Jones, Erin & Youngs, Richard (Ed.), Civic Activism in an Intensifying Climate Crisis. Carnegie Publishing Ltd.. p. 15–20. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2024). Performing Representation on a Pedestal: The Politics of Statues. In Diehl, Paula & Saward, Michael (Ed.), Bodies, Spaces, Claims: The theory and practice of performing political representation.. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780198934905. p. 224–244. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2023). Performances of Death; Hunger Strikes, Discipline, and Democracy. Democratic Theory: An Interdisciplinary Journal. ISSN 2332-8894. 10(2), p. 31–43. doi: 10.3167/DT.2023.100204. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Hunger striking is a form of protest that escapes conventional forms of political participation. I argue that as a spectacular performance of death, the hunger strike not only draws attention to a particular cause or exert moral pressure on an opponent but can galvanize and strengthen a na- scent political identity. Drawing on the example of the hunger strike of suf- fragette Marion Wallace-Dunlop, which I argue performatively constructed the identity of the disciplined “true suffragette,” I explain the hunger strike as a political becoming. Undertaken behind bars, by those denied citizen- ship rights, this protest should be understood not necessarily as the free expression of an already existing member of the demos but instead as a way of becoming a political subject while contesting and reconfiguring political boundaries.
Machin, Amanda Margaret & Ruser, Alexander (2023). Introduction: Sustainability, Democracy and the Dark Sides of Civil Society. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society. ISSN 0891-4486. doi: 10.1007/s10767-023-09445-2. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Despite widespread acknowledgement of the value of sustainability, the transition towards more sustainable economies and societies remains a challenge around the world. Civil societies play an important role not only in supporting government efforts on sustainability by ‘filling gaps’ and raising social awareness, but also in pioneering new practices and disrupting particular governmental or corporate strategies, as well as engaging and empowering previously marginalised individuals and groups. Yet civil society is not always a champion of sustainability nor of democracy; these actors may of course also destabilise innovations, depoliticise sustainability issues by reifying certain concepts or approaches and reinforce social hierarchies and patterns of exclusion that can undermine any transformative potential and bolster the unsustainable status quo. This Special Issue is therefore dedicated to interrogating what we see as the ambiguous, yet critical, role played by civil societies in sustainability politics. This introductory paper intends not only to draw attention to some of the arguments, theories and challenges found in each of the individual papers collected here, but also to pull on the common threads that run through them, as well as to unpick some of the different uses of the key terminology that they employ. We aim, moreover, to highlight the inevitable tension between the ‘democratic side’ and the ‘dark side’ of civil society and its politics of sustainability.
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2023). Democracy, Agony, and Rupture: A Critique of Climate Citizens’ Assemblies. Politische Vierteljahresschrift. ISSN 0032-3470. doi: 10.1007/s11615-023-00455-5. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Stymied by preoccupation with short-term interests of individualist consumers, democratic institutions seem unable to generate sustained political commitment for tackling climate change. The citizens’ assembly (CA) is promoted as an important tool in combatting this “democratic myopia.” The aim of a CA is to bring together a representative group of citizens and experts from diverse backgrounds to exchange their different insights and perspectives on a complex issue. By providing the opportunity for inclusive democratic deliberation, the CA is expected to educate citizens, stimulate awareness of complex issues, and produce enlightened and legitimate policy recommendations. However, critical voices warn about the simplified and celebratory commentary surrounding the CA. Informed by agonistic and radical democratic theory, this paper elaborates on a particular concern, which is the orientation toward consensus in the CA. The paper points to the importance of disagreement in the form of both agony (from inside) and rupture (from outside) that, it is argued, is crucial for a democratic, engaging, passionate, creative, and representative sustainability politics.
Schiller-Merkens, Simone & Machin, Amanda Margaret (2023). Knowing Food: Sustainability Politics, Food Policy Councils and the Co-Production of Knowledge. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society. ISSN 0891-4486. doi: 10.1007/s10767-023-09446-1. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
As one of the major causes of climate change, there is an urgent need for a fundamental transformation of the food system. Calls for greater sustainability underscore the importance of integrating civil society and the local knowledge of citizens in this transformation process. One increasingly relevant organisation that can actively engage a plurality of actors from across civil society is the Food Policy Council (FPC). In this paper, we explore the potential role of FPCs in sustainability politics to create an alternative food system, with a focus on the co-production of knowledge for policy-making. We propose that the co-production of knowledge requires knowledge inclusion, exchange and transmission, and we focus on the challenges that can arise for FPCs. Our paper shows that bottom-up emerging FPCs constitute a new form of alternative food organisation that can integrate and support the critical capacity of civil society in food system transformation, but also face potential struggles in the co-production of knowledge for sustainable food policy-making. The paper further highlights that co-producing knowledge in and for sustainability transformation is fundamentally a political process, with politics broadly conceived. It not only has relevance for the institutions of formal politics, but emerges in and is intrinsically linked to the grassroots collective action of contentious and prefigurative politics in civil society. FPCs (re)politicise food by combining these various kinds of sustainability politics, which constitutes their transformative potential.
Schojan, Fabio; Machin, Amanda Margaret & Silberberger, Magdalene (2023). Sustainable development discourse and development aid in Germany: tracking the changes from environmental protectionism towards private sector opportunities. Critical Policy Studies. ISSN 1946-0171. doi: 10.1080/19460171.2023.2265988. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
‘Sustainable Development’ can be understood as a widely used discourse that has become even more prominent since the publication of the UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development in 2015. In this paper we analyze the way sustainable development discourse unfolds within the context of development aid in Germany by undertaking a discourse analysis of reports on development policy published 1973–2017 by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. Our analysis reveals that the sustainable development discourse is characterized by distinct components and storylines that change over time. We detect, in general, a shift away from a focus on environmental protection toward an emphasis on the role of the private sector in leading sustainable development. We argue, therefore, that although development is now only legitimate if it is ‘sustainable’, the discourse apparently facilitates the uneven allocation of development aid. The concern that arises here is that although Agenda 2030 pledges to take “bold and transformative steps’ to secure the planet and to leave ‘no one behind” the least developed states who cannot provide ‘private sector opportunities’ or fulfil ‘national self-responsibilities’ for sustainable development are indeed being ‘left behind’.
Asenbaum, Hans; Machin, Amanda Margaret; Gagnon, Jean-Paul; Leong, Diana; Orlie, Melissa & Smith, James Louis (2023). The nonhuman condition: Radical democracy through new materialist lenses. Contemporary Political Theory. ISSN 1470-8914. 22, p. 584–615. doi: 10.1057/s41296-023-00635-3. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2023). Climate Change and Imaginaries of Democracy. Oxford Research Encyclopedias. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.859. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret & Tan, Evrim (2022). Green European citizenship? Rights, duties, virtues, practices and the European Green Deal. European Politics and Society. ISSN 2374-5118. doi: 10.1080/23745118.2022.2118984. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Published in December 2019 by the European Commission, the European Green Deal (EGD) sets out the aim to transform the EU into a sustainable society in which economic growth is decoupled from resource use, so that there are no greenhouse gas net emissions by 2050. As the ‘driving force of the transition’ citizens are expected a play a key role in achieving this shift, by adopting sustainable consumption habits and changing their life styles and behaviour as well as actively participating in policymaking [EC, 2019, 22]. This expectation raises questions about European citizenship: Can European citizenship be ‘greened’? Conversely, might the EGD strengthen European citizenship? Drawing together theoretical insights into ‘green citizenship’ with research on European citizenship this paper considers what a ‘green European citizenship’ (GEC) might look like. It examines the rights, duties, virtues and practices of a GEC, and underlines in particular the important role of ‘critical acts’ of European citizens. It concludes that while the initiatives of the EGD might provoke citizenship engagement, participation and identification, these initiatives might also further expose the fault lines between citizens in Europe. This possibility makes the critical acts undertaken by citizens all the more important.
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2022). Climate Democracy: Sceptical, Rational and Radical Imaginaries. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change (WIRESs). ISSN 1757-7780. 13(4). doi: 10.1002/wcc.774. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2020). Democracy, disagreement, disruption: agonism and the environmental state. Environmental Politics. ISSN 0964-4016. 29(1), p. 155–172. doi: 10.1080/09644016.2019.1684739. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2020). The Agony of Nuclear: Sustaining Democratic Disagreement. Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy. 16(1), p. 286–297. doi: 10.1080/15487733.2020.1829847. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2019). Agony and the Anthropos: Democracy and Boundaries in the Anthropocene. Nature and Culture. ISSN 1558-6073. 14(1), p. 1–16. doi: 10.3167/nc.2019.140101. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2019). Changing the Story? The trajectory of the ecological modernisation discourse in the European Union. Environmental Politics. ISSN 0964-4016. 28(2), p. 208–227. doi: 10.1080/09644016.2019.1549780. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2019). Democracy in the Anthropocene: The Challenges of Knowledge, Time and Identity. Environmental Values. ISSN 0963-2719. 28(3), p. 347–365. doi: 10.3197/096327119X15519764179836. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2018). Science, Knowledge and Bodies: “We can know more than we can tell”. Èpistemologiâ i filosofiâ nauki. ISSN 1811-833X. 55(4), p. 84–97. doi: 10.5840/eps201855470. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2016). Hunger Power: The embodied protest of the political hunger strike. Interface: a journal for and about social movements. 8(1), p. 157–180. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2015). Deliberating Bodies: Democracy, Identification and Embodiment. Democratic Theory: An Interdisciplinary Journal. ISSN 2332-8894. 2(1), p. 42–62. doi: 10.3167/dt.2015.020104. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2014). Mouffe, Merleau-Ponty and Others: The View from Somewhere? Parallax. ISSN 1353-4645. 20(2), p. 73–87. doi: 10.1080/13534645.2014.896553. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret & Smith, Graham (2014). Means, Ends, Beginnings: Environmental Technocracy, Ecological Deliberation or Embodied Democracy? Ethical Perspectives. ISSN 1370-0049. 21(1), p. 47–72. doi: 10.2143/EP.21.1.3017286. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2012). Decisions, disagreement and responsibility: towards an agonistic green citizenship. Environmental Politics. ISSN 0964-4016. 21(6), p. 847–863. doi: 10.1080/09644016.2012.712791. Full text in Research Archive

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Machin, Amanda & Wissenburg, Marcel (2025). Handbook of Environmental Political Theory in the Anthropocene. Edward Elgar Publishing. ISBN 9781802208948. doi: 10.4337/9781802208955. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2022). Bodies of Democracy: Modes and Moments of Embodied Politics. Transcript Verlag. ISBN 9783837649239. 183 p. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret & Meidert, Nadine (2021). Political Identification in Europe: Community in Crisis. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. ISBN 9781839821257. 216 p. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret & Ruser, Alexander (2019). What Counts in the Politics of Climate Change? Science, Scepticism and Emblematic Numbers. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9783030112080. 22 p. Full text in Research Archive
Ruser, Alexander & Machin, Amanda Margaret (2019). Against Political Compromise- Sustaining Democratic Debate (paperback). Routledge Focus. ISBN 9780367901318. 78 p. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret & Stehr, Nico (2019). Society and Climate: Transformations and Challenges. World Scientific. ISBN 9789813272439. 198 p. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret & Stehr, Nico (2016). Understanding Inequality: Social Costs and Benefits. Springer. ISBN 9783658116620. 427 p. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2015). Nations and Democracy: New Theoretical Perspectives. Routledge. ISBN 9781138066540. 172 p. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2013). Negotiating Climate Change: Radical Democracy and the Illusion of Consensus. Zed Books. ISBN 9781780323978. 176 p. Full text in Research Archive

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Machin, Amanda Margaret (2024). Review: Democracy in a hotter time: climate change and democratic transformation. Environmental Politics. ISSN 0964-4016. doi: 10.1080/09644016.2024.2432212. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2023). Environmentalism. In Grasso, Maria & Giugni, Marco (Ed.), Elgar Encyclopedia of Political Sociology. Edward Elgar Publishing. ISSN 9781803921228. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2022). Climate Change and Green Democratic Transformations. In Bornemann, Basil; Knappe, Henrike & Nanz, Patrizia (Ed.), The Handbook of Democracy and Sustainability. Routledge. ISSN 9780367109585. Full text in Research Archive
Machin, Amanda Margaret (2022). Green Democracy: Political Imaginaries of Environmental Movements. In grasso, maria & Giugni, Marco (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Environmental Movements. Routledge. ISSN 9780367428785. Full text in Research Archive
Abrams, Benjamin; Büttner, Sebastian & Machin, Amanda Margaret (2021). Identity and Brexit: Five Readings of the Referendum. In Machin, Amanda Margaret & Meidert, Nadine (Ed.), Political Identification in Europe: Community in Crisis. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. ISSN 9781839821257. p. 147–160. Full text in Research Archive
Ruser, Alexander & Machin, Amanda Margaret (2020). Rally around the Flag? The Far-Right Response to Covid-19. Green European Journal. Full text in Research Archive
Ruser, Alexander & Machin, Amanda Margaret (2019). Nationalising the Climate: Is the European Far Right turning Green? Green European Journal. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
With the issue of climate now on the political centre stage, parties across the spectrum can no longer afford to ignore it and must position themselves, the far right included. Looking to Germany, Austria and Italy, researchers Amanda Machin and Alexander Ruser bust the myth that far-right parties across Europe share a stance of climate denialism and examine the rise of ‘climate nationalism’, asking what the far right’s surge in the 2019 European elections might mean for climate politics. Studying the positions of far-right parties on climate, they argue, helps us to move beyond a technocratic framing to put the politics back into the discussion.
Machin, Amanda Margaret & Wagener, Oliver (2019). The Nature of Green Populism. Green European Journal. Full text in Research Archive

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Published Apr. 16, 2024 11:32 AM - Last modified Feb. 12, 2026 9:13 AM