Postdoctor Research Fellow Position at the Department of Comparative Politics

About the Project

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 postdoctoral research fellow 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 project team will develop survey questions which enable the team to observe how citizen's preferences and regional politician's role-perceptions change under different contextual situations. The successful candidate will develop questions to be fielded through the Digital Social Science Core Facility (DIGSSCORE) at the University of Bergen (UiB) which maintains a Panel of Regional and Local Voters and a Panel of Regional and Local Politicians. There is ample opportunity for the successful candidate to field questions for own research objectives. The panels will be annually surveyed by a Research Cluster on Territorial Democracy and Reforms set up by the principal investigator (Arjan Schakel) and which connects local collaborators to the project team. There is plenty opportunity to collaborate with the other team members of CREDGOV, i.e. one postdoc, one PhD candidate, 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 update and expand datasets set up by the principal investigator which include regional and national elections in 392 regions nested in 23 European countries held from 1950 to 2015.

Qualifications and Personal Qualities

• Must hold a PhD within social sciences ((e.g. political science, public administration/policy, sociology, economics), or must have submitted his/her doctoral thesis for assessment prior to the application deadline. It is a condition of employment that the PhD has been awarded.
• 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).
• Should be able to work independently as well as in a team.
• Has research experience within 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 capable to collaborate on an international level and to contribute to building an international collaborative network.

We Offer

• Exciting development opportunities as part of your role in a strong professional environment.
• Salary at pay grade 59 - 62 (code 1352) on the government salary scale upon appointment (equivalent to NOK 490.900 to 517.700 pr. year). Further promotions are made according to length of service in the position.
• Enrolment in the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund.
• Good welfare benefits.
• The city of Bergen - a unique mix of vibrant cultural life and extraordinary nature.