Dr. Mattias Hessérus

Mattias Hessérus is Director of the Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy and Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a historian whose research spans applied history, media and information policy and statecraft.

Hessérus has played a leading role in the Applied History movement. Through his work for the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit, he led the building of the Institute and, with Iain Martin, led the creation and launch of the Foundation-initiated online magazine Engelsberg Ideas. He served as project leader of the Engelsberg Seminar from 2013 to 2024. Founded in 1999, the Seminar has had an applied history approach from its inception.

Hessérus is the co-author of How Media Ownership Matters (Oxford University Press, 2025, with Rodney Benson, Timothy Neff, and Julie Sedel), which is shortlisted for the International Journal of Press/Politics Hazel Gaudet-Erskine Best Book Award and was named a finalist for the Frank Luther Mott / Kappa Tau Alpha Research Award. He is also the author of Rätten till privatlivet (Carlsson Bokförlag, 2017), a history of the press and privacy in Sweden, and co-editor of several anthologies, including Classics of Applied History (Stolpe Publishing, 2023, with John Bew and Andrew Ehrhardt). He has a background in journalism and was previously review editor of the Swedish magazine Axess. He is currently working on an intellectual biography of the political scientist Harold D. Lasswell. He holds a PhD from Uppsala University.