Postdoctoral positions in the YOUTHPOL research project

The Department of Political Science at Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University, invites applications for one or more 2-year fulltime postdoctoral positions to join a new research project on political parties and their youth wings. The project is directed by associate professor, Henrik Bech Seeberg.

The starting date is February 1st, 2024 but can be flexible subject to mutual agreement.

The research project

The positions are part of the project “YOUTHPOL”. In the 4-year ‘Sapere Aude’ project funded by the Danish Research Council (6.2 million DKR), we aim to understand how youth wings across Europe influence their mother parties’ policy positions and priorities and bring issues into parliament to push for policy change on behalf of young people. Youth wings appear to be involved as drivers of various policy changes including cannabis legislation in Germany, gender-equal military service in Denmark and dyslexia screening in Denmark – but at the same time youth wings are seen by many as amateurs and peripheral to policy-making. We will initiate a research agenda on political parties’ adaptation to new generations of voters and how youth wings can catalyze or thwart this adaptation process. We will develop a theoretical model to understand youth wings as political organizations that use techniques from interest groups such as exchanging expertise on youth issues for influence and like factions use ideologically extreme positions to pressurize the mother party to change positions, priorities, and policy.

Methodologically, the project plans to use rigorous and causally credible research designs, including novel elite-experiments and advanced statistical analysis of extensive and detailed cross-country, cross-time data. We aim to conduct the first systematic, large-scale analysis of youth wing political influence across multiple European countries and conduct cutting edge elite survey experiments to causally identify youth wing influence on mother party politicians.

The project contributes to the general fields of research in representation, political parties, legislatures, and public policy as well as to the study of political influence and policy-making. The project is expected to generate high-quality research and is externally funded. The project comes with generous funding for, e.g., international conference.

Job description

The postdoctoral researchers will be employed as part of a research group and are expected to engage in collaborative research with the research team. The applicant is expected to be present in the Department of Political Science at Aarhus University and participate in frequent project meetings as well as be part of the broader research environment at the Department.

The postdocs will be expected to take a leading role in developing, designing as well as coordinating research projects and publishing research in high impact journals.

Moreover, as part of the research group, the postdocs are expected to provide support for project-related research, organizational, and administrative tasks.

The successful applicants will be part of a cutting-edge research project and a vibrant and supportive research team with an informal atmosphere. There will be excellent opportunities for intellectual development and mentoring as well as developing an independent research agenda within the context of the project.

The project offers funding for conferences, additional training, independent data collection, and good opportunities for developing a strong academic network.

In addition to the outlined research tasks, the positions entail teaching the equivalent of one course per year. Depending on the applicants’ prior teaching experience and the need for the applicants’ teaching capacity in the relevant years, a one-year extension in return for additional teaching might be negotiable. This extension will be decided by the Head of Department no later than one year after employment. Salary is highly competitive and set according to the Danish pay schedule.

Your qualifications

Candidates must hold (or be close to completing) a PhD in Political Science or another field relevant to the project. In addition to this the applicant should

• have an interest in understanding how youth wings influence their parent parties.
• have an interest in conducting collaborative research.
• have programming experience (e.g., Stata, R or Python), and preferably experience with conducting experiments or comparative case studies
• have experience with large-scale data management.
• have strong quantitative skills, including some experience with causal inference methods.
• conduct state-of-the-art research within the field.
• Have an excellent command of spoken and written English

It is not a requirement that the applicant has worked on youth wings or youth politics before, and we encourage people with diverse research interest to apply (could be political parties, legislative politics, political communication, interest groups, political economy, political institutions, and political behavior).

As part of your application, you should attach a CV, proof of PhD degree (or the near completion of a PhD degree) and your best publication (could be an unpublished chapter of your dissertation, a working paper, or a published article). In addition to this, you should provide a short research proposal (2-3 pages) that outline potential avenues for research related to the project. The proposal should be relatively concrete, specifying an interesting research question, and a credible way to answer it.   

Who we are

The Department of Political Science is one of the six departments at Aarhus BSS, one of the five faculties at Aarhus University. The department is among the largest and strongest political science departments in Europe, with particular strengths in the areas of political behavior, political psychology and political philosophy. In 2020, the Department of Political Science at Aarhus University was ranked as the top department in political science in continental Europe, according to ShanghaiRanking's Global Ranking (http://www.shanghairanking.com/Shanghairanking-Subject- Rankings/political-sciences.html).

At the Department of Political Science, we emphasize a dynamic and flexible research and teaching profile characterized by pluralism and openness. With more than 100 academic staff members and 50 PhD students, we offer a lively, ambitious and highly collegial research and teaching environment with many international visitors and workshops and a clear international orientation. For more information about the Department of Political Science, please see: https://ps.au.dk/en.

Further information

Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact Associate Professor Henrik Bech Seeberg prior to submitting their application to learn more about the project, the hiring process, and/or specific tasks. E-mail h.seeberg@ps.au.dk.

If you need help uploading your application or have any questions about the recruitment process, please contact HR supporter Charlotte Zingenberg Tel.: +45 9350 9350 E-mail: chg@au.dk

Place of work

Department of Political Science, Bartholins Allé 7, DK - 8000 Aarhus C

International applicant?

Aarhus University offers a broad variety of services for international researchers and accompanying families, including relocation service and career counselling to expat partners. Please find more information here:
https://internationalstaff.au.dk/relocationservice/

Please find more information about research opportunities at Aarhus University here: http://international.au.dk/research/

Aarhus University also offers a Junior Researcher Development Programme targeted at career development for postdocs at AU. You can read more about it here: 
http://talent.au.dk/junior-researcher-development-programme/

Terms of employment

The appointment is made in accordance with the Memorandum on Job Structure for Academic Staff at Danish Universities as well as the circular on the Collective Agreement for Academics Employed by the State (in Danish).
The job content and qualification requirements are described in further detail in the Ministerial Order on the Appointment of  Academic Staff at Universities.

Application procedure

When you apply for this position it is mandatory to attach the following:

• Application
• Curriculum Vitae. You are encouraged to declare any periods of leave without research activity, including, for example, maternity leave, since your research activities are assessed in relation to your actual research time
• Education (diploma for master's, PhD and possibly higher doctoral degree)
• List of publications (the enclosed publications must be clearly marked on the list of publications)
• Publications. Up to three publications can be included in the application. In the event of several authors the publications must be accompanied by a co-author statement concerning the applicant's share of the collaborative work with the consent of the co-authors. Please use this template
• Teaching portfolio. The specific requirements regarding the documentation can be found here

 Materials which cannot be uploaded together with the application may be submitted in three copies to Aarhus BSS HR & PhD, Aarhus University, Tåsingegade 1, 2nd floor, DK-8000 Aarhus C.
 
Read more about how to apply for an academic post at Aarhus BSS here

The evaluation process

After the application deadline, an assessment committee is appointed. Please note that the assessment of applicants is based solely on the material received prior to the application deadline. For further information, see Guidelines for Assessment Committee, Aarhus BSS.

Aarhus University’s ambition is to be an attractive and inspiring workplace for all and to foster a culture in which each individual has opportunities to thrive, achieve and develop. We view equality and diversity as assets, and we welcome all applicants.

The application must be submitted via Aarhus University’s recruitment system, which can be accessed under the job advertisement on Aarhus University's website.