Österreichische Gesellschaft für Politikwissenschaft

This is a call for applications for one full-time doctoral positionin the framework of an Incentive Grant (MIS- FNRS) at Université libre de Bruxelles. The project is led by Nathalie Brack (Centre d’étude de la vie politique, Cevipol).

The selected candidate will start on 1^st of March 2023 (or as soon as possible after that) and be funded by a FNRS (Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique) doctoral grant for 36 months.

Objectives of the project:

Since the mid-2010s, concern over misinformation has been growing. Brexit and the 2016 US presidential election have highlighted the potential impact of manipulative messages on political decisions. These events are key milestones signalling the beginning of a new era, one of post-truth. It is characterized by a systemic shift towards a political culture in which accuracy and factual veracity in public debates are less important than other concerns and the line between facts and opinions is increasingly blurred. This presents contemporary democracies with a major challenge. Democracy is not only a set of formal rights, procedures, and institutions; it also requires enlightened understanding. But if facts are downgraded as mere opinions and political actors cannot agree on whether a fact is a fact, how can the democratic process unfold?

This project aims at understanding post-truth politics and its implications for democratic societies by looking at one central actor: political parties, which play a vital role as opinion shapers. Therefore, this project seeks to determine to what extent, and why political parties in Europe contribute to post-truth politics. It will focus on one facet of this phenomenon: conspiracy narratives.

It is structured around 3 steps: first, it will examine how often parties use conspiracy narratives and the type of discourse. Then the second step seeks to understand why there is a variation among parties, with a hypothesis regarding the degree of populism and one on the relation between extremism and the use of conspiracy discourse. The last one focuses on the interactions between parties and citizens to understand the consequences for democracy.

The project will rely on a comparative analysis across 4 countries and will use mixed method (Twitter data, quantitative analysis, citizens surveys and interviews with political elites). Within this framework, the PhD candidate has some leeway to propose original doctoral research ideas which can contribute to achieve the objectives described above. The detailed job ad is available here.

The Institute for International Political Economy at the Vienna University of Economics and Business is looking for a Teaching and Research Associate (Pre-Doc). The position is advertised for a working time of 30 hours/week and is to be filled from 1st March, 2023, limited to a period of 6 (six) years.
 
What to expect:

• Development of a PhD project in the field of International Political Economy (specifically in the areas of trade, FDI, sovereign debt, banks, stock markets, etc.) under the supervision of Prof. Jonas Bunte
• Participation in the English-taught PhD program at the Department of Socioeconomics
• Writing of a dissertation
• Participation in research projects and support of publication activities of the Institute. 

Requirements for interested candidates include a Master's degree with a focus on social sciences (preferably economics or political science) and qualifications in collecting, processing and analysing large data sets (preferably with "Stata" or "R"). For further information please have a look at the detailed call for applications.

The deadline for applications is the 18th January, 2023.

Please find the full job ad here.