Tommi Kotonen is a political scientist and researcher at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Between 2018 and 2021 he worked as a research coordinator of the Academy of Finland profiling area Crises Redefined: Historical Continuity and Societal Change. Kotonen is one of the leading experts on radical nationalist movements in Finland, widely used by the media, and has also worked as a consultant and country expert in several government and NGO projects both in Finland and abroad. His publications include works on the history of radical nationalist movements, far-right subculture, political violence, and vigilantism. Kotonen’s latest monograph, The Trenches of Politics: Far-right Movements in Finland During the Cold War (Atena, 2018), analyses the development of radical nationalism in Finland during the Cold War, drawing from hitherto unemployed archival material from the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service.
Research interests
Political violence
Political language and rhetoric
Far-right culture
Far-right movements
Crises
Featured publications
Kotonen, Tommi. 2020. “Politics, violence and transgression in Finnish Rock Against Communism music: a cross-genre case study.” Patterns of Prejudice 54.
Kotonen, Tommi. 2020. “Finland.” In CEP Study Violent Right-Wing Extremism and Terrorism – Transnational Connectivity, Definitions, Incidents, Structures and Countermeasures.
Kotonen, Tommi. 2020. “Terminological Games: The Finnish Security Police Monitoring the Far-Right Movements in Finland During the Cold War.” Redescriptions 23 (1).
Kotonen, Tommi. 2019. “The Soldiers of Odin Finland: From a local movement to an international franchise.” In Tore Bjørgo and Miroslav Mareš, eds., Vigilantism against Migrants and Minorities. Abingdon: Routledge. 241-256.
Kotonen, Tommi. 2019. “Nostalgia, community and resistance: Counter-cultural politics in a Finnish skinzine.” Journal of European Popular Culture 10 (2). 127-143.
Kotonen, Tommi. 2018. Politiikan juoksuhaudat: äärioikeistoliikkeet Suomessa kylmän sodan aikana. Jyväskylä: Atena.
Kotonen, Tommi. 2017. “Kampen för den europeiska livsstilen: drag inom den finlandssvenska högerextrema tankevärlden efter andra världskriget.” In A. Biström and J. Thylin-Klaus, eds., Historiska och litteraturhistoriska studier 92. Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland. 179-209.
Kotonen, Tommi. 2017. “Witnessing Language: Charles Bernstein and 9/11.” In K. Lindroos, and F. Möller, eds., Art as a Political Witness. Leverkusen: Opladen: Verlag Barbara Budrich. 161-177.
