Marius Ostrowski
Marius Ostrowski
Dr Marius Ostrowski was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1988. He is an award-winning social and political theorist, and historian of 20th-century political thought. He has published on a wide range of topics, from the history of the Weimar Republic to the role of experts in public life, and from the birth of the European Union to modern social democracy.
Marius specialises in the study of ideologies, in particular how ideologies emerge and gain influence among the general population. His current research focuses on two case studies of ideologies that fought to assert themselves in the public opinion of their day: (1) the emergence of social democracy as an independent ideology in the early 20th century (1896–1932); (2) the rise of visions of European unity between the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Rome (1919–1957).
Marius read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Magdalen College, University of Oxford, specialising in political theory, the history of ideas, European politics, and international relations. After graduating with First-class honours in 2010, he completed an MPhil in Political Theory in 2012, and a DPhil in Politics in 2017, both at Oxford’s Department of Politics and International Relations. His doctoral research, conducted under the supervision of Michael Freeden, examined how ideologies shape the way in which public opinion is formed and expressed.
Since 2013, Marius has taught and lectured at Oxford in political theory, European politics, Marxism, and the history of ideas. Between 2013 and 2020, he was an Examination Fellow in Politics at All Souls College, Oxford, the only candidate out of 98 applicants in his year to be chosen for this prestigious research fellowship. In 2020, he was appointed as a Max Weber Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute, Florence—the rare recipient of a two-year award—and joined the academic research network of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies.
In 2017, Marius embarked on a multi-year project of publishing the collected writings of the foundational German social-democratic thinker Eduard Bernstein, translated into English for the first time (with Palgrave Macmillan). The first two volumes, Eduard Bernstein on Social Democracy and International Politics (2018) and Eduard Bernstein on the German Revolution (2019) have already appeared in print, and a third, Eduard Bernstein on Socialism Past and Present, will be published later in 2020.
Also in 2020, in collaboration with Policy Network, Marius published Left Unity: Manifesto For a Progressive Alliance (with Rowman & Littlefield), in which he argues for greater cooperation between the progressive forces in society, informed by the successes and failures of similar projects in the past. In 2021–22, he will contribute a volume on Ideology to Polity’s “Key Concepts” series, intended as an introductory text for undergraduate and graduate students in politics, philosophy, and social science.