Mathias Thaler is Professor of Political Theory in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. His main research interest is in contemporary political theory. Thaler regularly teaches courses on democratic theory, populism, human rights and the morality of war and violence. He currently serves as Co-Director of Research in the School of Social and Political Science.

Thaler is the author of No Other Planet (Cambridge University Press 2022), Naming Violence (Columbia University Press 2018), Moralische Politik oder politische Moral? (Campus 2008), and co-editor (with Mihaela Mihai) of Political Violence and the Imagination (Routledge 2020) and of On the Uses and Abuses of Political Apologies (Palgrave 2014). His papers have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as the American Political Science Review, British Journal of Political Science, Environmental Politics, European Journal of Political Theory, Perspectives on Politics, Political Studies, Political Theory, and Review of Politics, amongst others.

His recent research has been funded through a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant from the European Commission (2013–2017), through a Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust (2020–2021) and through an AHRC Networking Grant (2023–2024). Thaler has moreover been the recipient of competitive awards from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Theodor Körner Fonds and the Gulbenkian Foundation, as well as smaller funders. Over the past ten years, Thaler has held visiting fellowships at the University of Oxford, the Université de Montréal, KU Leuven and the University of Sydney.