Postdoctor in Political Science

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The Department of Political Science is an international academic environment that welcomes students, researchers and staff from all over the world. Our research covers topics such as political institutions, elections, public opinion and democracy, international and European politics, environmental politics, corruption and political ideas. The Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg is ranked as the best in Sweden and one of the top 10-15 in Europe in its subject area, according to the global Shanghai ranking of academic subjects for 2024. We organize a large number of research seminars and workshops each year in the various research areas of the department. We offer education at all levels in both Swedish and English. In total, around 1,400 people study with us, and we have around 170 employees.

For more information about the Department, visit our website www.pol.gu.se.

The Department of Political Science invites applications for a postdoctoral fellow to conduct research within the Positions and Priorities project, funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond Grant P26-0296 (PI: Jacob Gunderson). This is a 2-year position, 100% of full-time, with the possibility to extend the employment by another 12 months.

The Research Project

Positions and Priorities: Explaining Electoral Volatility in Sweden and Beyond seeks to understand how parties' issue attention shapes electoral volatility in Sweden and other advanced democracies. The project does so by theorizing the direct and indirect channels through which parties' issue emphasis and the distinctiveness of that emphasis structure voters' movement between parties. The core expectation is that voter flows are concentrated among similar parties, so the similarity of parties' issue emphasis should be positively related to voter flow volume, with key interactions with positional differences between parties and with issue ownership.

Methodologically, the project uses both observational and experimental data. The project will integrate Swedish party manifestos, laws, and government policy statements (regeringsförklaringar) into the Comparative Agendas Project (CAP), an international collaboration of 25+ projects coding political activities (manifestos, bills, government statements, budgets, etc.) into a single, consistent issue coding schema. The project will accomplish this through a combination of hand-coded training data and a collaboration with the CAP Babel Machine, the leading approach for the classification of large volumes of text into the CAP coding system.

The project then uses the Swedish CAP data, as well as comparable data from other national projects, and matches it with national election study data to investigate the interplay between party positions and priorities in structuring voter flows. The project will also leverage survey experiments to causally identify the mechanisms underlying the observational findings.

The Positions and Priorities project is theoretically ambitious, generates new data sets of interest to both Swedish and international researchers, and uses several types of analysis to explain one of the key features of politics in contemporary advanced democracies. In doing so, it offers a rich environment for an early career researcher to simultaneously develop their own research agenda, contribute to an important research area, and develop strong contacts with a large and growing international research network.

A more detailed project description is available upon request.

A successful applicant will also become part of a dynamic department with active, congenial researchers and ongoing projects. In addition to a vibrant set of party scholars, the department also has research groups focused on Elections, Public Opinion, and Political Behavior (EPOP), Comparative Politics, and a number of other groups focused on corruption, international relations, democracy, gender and politics, and environmental politics. There are, therefore, ample opportunities for collaboration, mentorship, and intellectual development beyond the project in a pluralistic and collaborative research context.

Subject area

Political science

Subject area description

Political Science is the study of politics.

Duties

The employment as a postdoctoral fellow aims to give the employee an early opportunity to develop his independence as a researcher after completing his doctoral degree and to create the conditions for further qualifications. The person employed as a postdoctoral fellow must mainly conduct research. Teaching can be included in the work duties, but to a maximum of one-fifth of the working time.

The postdoctoral fellow will be employed at the Political Science Department as part of the Positions and Priorities project and is expected to engage in collaborative research with Jacob Gunderson and other members of the project.

The postdoctoral fellow will be important for the success of the project. The postdoc will have a key role in collaborating with Jacob Gunderson on the refinement of the CAP codebook for the project, the coordination of research assistants generating the hand-coded training data, and collaborating with the CAP Babel Machine team to validate the resulting classifications. The final data set will be a shared resource for team members, and the postdoc will collaborate with the PI on coauthoring studies, publicizing the data and leveraging it to understand electoral volatility. This includes funding for presenting research tied to the project at international conferences.

More details about the planned data collection, publications, and resources in the project are available upon request.

In addition to efforts directly tied to the project, the postdoc will pursue independent research related to the key topics of the project, such as issue salience, party positions, electoral volatility, voter flows, etc. The postdoc will have access to the CAP data as well as the opportunity to include their own items in the surveys in the latter part of the project. The postdoc will, therefore, contribute to the project's aims while also developing their own research agenda. The balance between time devoted to the project and time spent developing independent research avenues will be agreed between the PI and the postdoc as the project develops.

Eligibility

The eligibility criteria for employing teaching staff are set out in Chapter 4 of the Higher Education Ordinance and in the Appointment Procedure for Teaching Posts at the University of Gothenburg.

To be eligible for appointment as a postdoc, the applicant is required to have a doctoral degree, a doctoral degree in art or a foreign degree that is deemed to be equivalent to a doctoral degree. This eligibility requirement must be met before the employment decision is made.

In the first instance, those who have completed their degree no more than three years prior to the end of the application period shall be considered. Those who have completed their degree more than three years prior to the end of the application period may also be considered in the first instance if special grounds exist. Special grounds relate to leave of absence due to illness, parental leave, commissions of trust within union organisations, service within the defence services or other similar circumstances, as well as clinical service or service/assignment relevant to the subject area.

For more information regarding eligibility please visit The Appointment Procedure GU 2024/1687

Assessment criteria

You must have a doctoral degree, preferably in political science or another field relevant to the project, no later than the date on which the appointment decision is made. We expect the successful candidate to have a specialization in political parties, party strategy, voter behavior, electoral volatility, or related areas of research. Prior experience coordinating research assistants, carrying out quantitative text analysis, and fielding survey experiments will be an asset.

In addition to an interest in conducting collaborative and independent research in the Positions and Priorities project, applicants should demonstrate the ambition and ability to produce high-quality and high-impact research along with the ability to work constructively and effectively as part of an international research team.

We also expect applicants to have excellent skills in quantitative methods (R or Stata), including standard regression techniques, measurement, experimental design, and causal inference. We prefer applicants with a strong interest in developing creative methodological solutions and who have the ambition and willingness to acquire new methodological skills.

Applicants must have excellent written and oral proficiency in English. Proficiency in Swedish is not required, but it would be considered an asset.

To be successful in this position, you must have an eye for detail, good organizational skills and be able to solve problems. You need to have excellent communication and collaboration skills.

Great emphasis is placed on personal suitability for the position. We will make an overall assessment and the applicant who is considered to be best qualified to carry out and develop the tasks described above will be appointed to the position.

Employment

The employment is limited (temporary) for 24 months, 100% of full-time, with the possibility to extend the employment by another 12 months, based at the Department of Political Science. Starting date; 1 April, 2027 or as agreed.

Contact information

If you have questions regarding the employment, or details about the projects in which this position is organized, please contact Jacob Gunderson, jacob.gunderson@gu.se

If you have any questions regarding the employment procedure, please contact Helena Jensen, helena.jensen@gu.se

Unions

Union representatives at the University of Gothenburg can be found here: https://www.gu.se/en/work-at-the-university-of-gothenburg/how-to-apply-for-a-position#collective-agreement-and-union-representatives

Application

Submit your application via the University of Gothenburg's recruitment portal by clicking the "Apply" button. It is your responsibility to ensure that the application is complete as per the vacancy notice, and that the University receives it by the final application deadline.

We kindly ask you to write your application in English as the application may be reviewed by English-speaking staff. In the selection process, it will likely be relevant with interviews, reference taking and work tests in English.

The application should include the following:

• A letter of application (max. 3 pages), in which applicants should motivate why they are interested in being part of the Positions and Priorities project and how their current research agenda contributes to the project.
• A CV (including a list of publications).
• One writing sample of article length.
• An outline of potential ideas for research relevant to the focus of the project (max. 3 pages, excluding bibliographic references).
• A list of at least three references (with contact information) from whom letters of recommendation can be solicited at the interview stage.

Applications must be received by: 2027-01-11

Information for International Applicants

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The University works actively to achieve a working environment with equal conditions, and values the qualities that diversity brings to its operations.

Salaries are set individually at the University.

In accordance with the National Archives of Sweden's regulations, the University must archive application documents for two years after the appointment is filled. If you request that your documents are returned, they will be returned to you once the two years have passed. Otherwise, they will be destroyed.

In connection to this recruitment, we have already decided which recruitment channels we should use. We therefore decline further contact with vendors, recruitment and staffing companies.