Tomas Mitander

My research focuses on issues of governance, marketization, and depoliticization. I have a strong interest in political theory and critical epistemology, particularly in relation to concepts such as citizenship, spatiality, and power.

Empirically, much of my work has engaged with regional and local development policy, with particular attention to questions of gender equality, the urban–rural relation, and growth policy. I am also interested in the role of private consultants in public policy and the significance of expertise in policy development.

I am acting as coordinator for the reseach group PPG (Reseach group on Power, Politics and Govenring) at Karlstad University. 

I work with course development and teaching at all levels of political science.

I serve as Programme Director for the Master’s Programme in Political Science, where I also teach political theory.

At the undergraduate level, much of my teaching focuses on methodology courses and thesis supervision, and I am course coordinator for Political Science III.

Within the doctoral programme, I am involved in teaching qualitative methods and a course in critical epistemology. I have also served as co-supervisor for two completed PhD projects.

Mitander, T. (2025). Critical Knowledge Interventions—Relevance Beyond Foundations. Cultural Studies↔ Critical Methodologies, 15327086251369554.

Mitander, T. (2024). Undoing the regional demos? Gender equality and economic growth in regional development. NORA-Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 32(1), 49-61.

Lauri, M., Mitander, T., & Rönnblom, M. (2022). Consultants, competition and commodification: government procurement of knowledge. Mittuniversitetet.

Mitander, T., & Öjehag-Pettersson, A., (2022) The production of left behind places – The policy imaginaries of Swedish regional development Conference paper, presented at SWEPSA, Örebro

Öjehag-Pettersson, A., & Mitander, T. (2020). Traveling expertise and regional development. Routledge.