Bernt Hagtvet is a Norwegian political scientist, writer, and social commentator. He is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Oslo, retired in 2016. He is a specialist in European politics, extreme political movements, genocide, democracy and human rights. He has been described as “Norway’s foremost expert in totalitarian regimes and ideologies in the 20^th century.”

Hagtvet was among the founders of the Human Rights House Foundation, and stayed on as a board member. He is now the chairperson of the board. Hagtvet is also a board member at the Center for Studies of the Holocaust and Minorities.

In 1994, he became a professor at the Institute of political science at the University of Oslo. Prior to that, he was the director of research of the human rights programme at Chr. Michelsens Institute from 1983, at the same time serving part-time as a professor at the Institute for comparative politics at the University of Bergen. In the beginning of the 1980s, Hagtvet worked at Oppland district college in Lillehammer.

Hagtvet is the author of a number of books and articles. He is also well-known in Norway as a social commentator. He studied at Yale University, where he took a master’s degree in International Studies in 1972.