Planetary Change and Politics

​Frederic Hanusch is Professor of Planetary Change and Politics at Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany. He is co-founder of the university's Panel on Planetary Thinking, co-convener of the Earth System Governance Project’s Working Group on Democracy, and a recent appointee to the British Academy and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Washington, D.C.) working group on Transnational and Planetary Challenges as part of their Program Global (Dis)Orders.

His research focuses on the humanities and social sciences' exploration of planetary change, as well as the analysis and design of planetary politics. His latest book, The Politics of Deep Time (Cambridge University Press, 2023), explores the political institutionalization of planetary temporalities. Other relevant publications demonstrate his engagement with both scholarly research and broader public discourse, ranging from his research monograph Democracy and Climate Change (Routledge, 2018) to the essay-based edited volume Seeds for Democratic Futures (transcript, 2024).

Before joining Justus Liebig University, he earned a MA in Political Science, Philosophy and Sociology at Ruprecht Karls University Heidelberg and a PhD at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) in Essen. In parallel to his PhD, he worked with the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) in Berlin, contributing to policy reports on topics such as urbanization, the SDGs, and climate protection. He later led a research group at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam and was a fellow at THE NEW INSTITUTE in Hamburg.

Frederic Hanusch has received several scholarships, including the Visiting Distinguished Fellowship at the University of Canberra's Centre for Deliberative Democracy & Global Governance in 2024. He regularly appears in newspapers, radio and television.