Last application date Aug 01, 2024 00:00
Department PS03 - Department of Political Sciences
Contract Limited duration
Degree Master in political science, sociology, public administration, or in any other field of social sciences with comparable qualifications.
Occupancy rate 100%
Vacancy type Research staff
The research group GASPAR (www.gaspar.ugent.be) is seeking a motivated and enthusiastic researcher to pursue a PhD based on a 4-year research project related to the topics of democratic commitment and political support. We encourage the PhD candidate to develop their own project within this broad topic. Below is a brief summary of the relevant topics:
A long tradition of literature emphasizes that the stability of democracies rests upon its citizens. According to scholars like Easton (1975) and Norris (2011), citizens’ support for the political system and their commitment to democracy is vital for its functioning and endurance. Though citizens overwhelmingly support democracy as the most desirable form of governance (Wike et al. 2017; Wuttke et al. 2022), they are often willing to condone undemocratic acts as long as they stand to gain from them politically (Krishnarajan 2023). Citizens are, for instance, inclined to vote for undemocratic candidates that align with their partisan preferences (Graham & Svolik 2020), and they are willing to accept flawed democratic processes as long as they are on the winning side (Werner et al. 2023). Another crucial part of citizens’ democratic commitments is losers’ consent (i.e. the consent of those who did not achieve their desired outcome in a political process), which seems to be increasingly under pressure following events in, for instance, the US and Brazil.
Combining these insights, scholars have raised concerns about the extent to which citizens can uphold democracy. Are citizens’ commitments to democratic principles strong enough to maintain the stability of democracy and defend it against, for instance, would-be authoritarians? And are citizens still willing to gracefully accept political losses?
We invite candidates for this PhD position to explore these questions or related topics (e.g., losers’ consent, citizens’ perceptions of legitimacy, political trust).
WHAT WE CAN OFFER YOU
Send us your motivation letter, your CV, an overview of your study results, and a preliminary research proposal related to the topics described above (in English) of 2 pages by Thursday, 1st of August 2024. We encourage applications to pursue their own interests and ideas within the broader topic of democratic commitments in their research proposal. All these documents are preferably merged into one PDF file. This merged file should be sent to Prof. A. Kern (anna.kern@ugent.be).
For more information about the content of the job and/or the project, you can contact Anna Kern (anna.kern@ugent.be ) from 16.07.2024 onwards.
Last-year students (graduating in June) are especially encouraged to apply.
Job interviews will be held in the last two weeks of August.
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