PhD Fellowship at the Department of Comparative Politics 2019, University of Bergen, Norway

There is a vacancy for a PhD position at the Department of Comparative Politics, University of Bergen. The Department of Comparative Politics offers an exciting place for research and education on political institutions, organizations, processes and behaviour at local, regional, national, and international levels. The Department offers bachelor's and master’s programmes in comparative politics, as well as a bachelor's programme in European studies. The staff participates actively in national and international cross-disciplinary research.

Tentative starting date of the position is October 1, 2019

The successful applicant will conduct research within the research project “Strengthening Regional Democracy – Contributing to Good Democratic Governance” funded by the Trond Mohn Foundation (TMS) and the University of Bergen (UiB). This research project sets out to identify the conditions which facilitate good democratic regional governance. The project foresees the establishment of the Centre on Regional Democratic Governance (CREDGOV) which will expand, consolidate, and disseminate knowledge on regional elections and governments, and which aims to become the world leading institute on regional democratic governance.

We are looking for a PhD-candidate who can contribute to the overall research project and conduct independent research linked to important questions of governance and democracy at the regional level. The successful candidate will update and extend existing datasets set up by the PI which include regional and national elections in 392 regions nested in 23 European countries held from 1950 to 2020 and supplement these datasets with data on the regional context (e.g. regional electoral systems, socio-economic context). There is plenty opportunity to collaborate with the other team members of CREDGOV, i.e. two postdocs, one research assistant and the principal investigator. The team will also integrate 410 regional elections surveys conducted in 68 regions in 8 countries into one trend file and will field questions to a panel of regional and local voters and a panel of regional and local politicians on an annual basis.

There is ample opportunity for the successful candidate to develop own research objectives within the broad framework of the project. Applicants are asked to write a research proposal of maximum two pages with an outline on how the applicant would like to contribute to the overall goals of the project and how the applicant would like to pursue an own research agenda. Funding will be dedicated towards the professional training of the PhD candidate. This includes, for example, resources to cover expenses for summer school courses for training in statistical methods. The successful candidate will also have the opportunity to carry out visits to the Centre on Constitutional Change at the University of Edinburgh and the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University.

A full outline of the project can be obtained by contacting the principal investigator, Arjan Schakel, arjan.schakel@uib.no

The successful candidate will be expected to relocate to the University of Bergen, participate in the scholarly activities of the Department, and conform to the regulations that apply to the position.

The applicant:

• Must have been awarded a MA degree in political science or in a relevant field within social sciences (e.g. public administration/policy, sociology, economics) or must have submitted his/her master’s thesis for assessment prior to the application deadline.
• Should be proficient in both written and oral English.
• Should be interested in applying quantitative methods and preferably has experience with mainstream statistical packages (e.g. SPSS, Stata, SAS, or R)
• Is able to work independently as well as in a team.
• Preferably has some knowledge on one or more themes that relate to the project, for example, democracy (elections, voting behaviour, political parties, representation) or governance (institutions, policy making, policy implementation, multilevel governance).
• Is willing to disseminate research results beyond the academic community.
• Is willing to collaborate on an international level and to contribute to building an international collaborative network.

Potential candidates will be invited for an interview in late August. Candidates will be asked to deliver a presentation during which they present their research plans and their potential contribution to the research project (see below).

Applicants are advised to familiarize themselves with the teaching and research profile at the Department. The teaching language is Norwegian, one of the Scandinavian languages and English. Proficiency in Norwegian or one of the Scandinavian language is not a requirement for this position.

For more information click "LINK TO ORIGINAL" below.