Postdoctoral Researcher

How can we conceptualize and empirically measure political trust and legitimacy beyond the usual survey question, “How much trust do you have in the parliament?”? Does the multi-level nature of European representative democracies require an identical level of citizen support at the regional, national and EU level? How does social polarization on key policy issues of our times –immigration, climate change, and gender inequality– challenge the political trust in, and legitimacy of, democratic political systems? And what can policymakers and civil society do to master these challenges? The ActEU project aims at finding answers to these questions and provides an innovative conceptual framework on political attitudes, behavior and representation across Europe.

The task of our work package located at the Saarland University (USAAR) seeks to establish an original empirical infrastructure based on newly collected quantitative and qualitative empirical data (focus groups, experimental surveys, web scraping) and contributes to the creation of a toolbox of remedial actions to enhance political trust in and legitimacy of European representative democracies. As a postdoctoral researcher at UdS you will be part of an interdisciplinary, highly motivated European consortium of over 40 members at 12 universities and have the opportunity to advance your own career in the international community with a cutting-edge research question.

Your tasks within ActEU

• Setting up the project's data infrastructure (together with the WP leaders Daniela Braun and Ann-Kathrin Reinl).
• Taking over communication with survey institutes and data archives.
• Contributing to the preparation of focus group discussions and partly supervising their implementation on-site.
• Contributing to the development of questionnaires for international public opinion surveys with experimental components.
• Advisory on web-scraping activities of the project.
• Writing project reports.
• Representing the project at (inter-)national conferences.
• Publishing at scientific outlets based on the data collected within the project (either alone or in co-authorship with the WP leaders)

Your profile

• Research interest in the topics of political trust, representation and/or satisfaction with democracy
• Quantitative research profile
• Very good Stata or R skills
• Very good English skills
• Experiences with setting up focus groups and/or international surveys

Your academic qualifications

• Doctoral degree / PhD : Very good completed (or nearly completed) dissertation in the fields of political science, sociology or survey methodology
• Language skills (according to GER): excellent spoken and written English; any other European language (in particular German) is considered as an additional benefit

The successful candidate will also be expected to
• have social and communication skills, as well as demonstrated administrative and organizational skills, incl. self-direction
• have some experience of working on collaborative international research projects

What we can offer you

• A flexible work schedule allowing you to balance work and family, among other things, the possibility of teleworking
• Secure and future-oriented employment with attractive conditions
• A broad range of further education and professional development programmes (for example, language courses)
• An occupational health management model with numerous attractive options, such as our university sports programme
• Supplementary pension scheme (RZVK)
• Discounted tickets on local public transport services (‘Job-Ticket Plus‘ of the saarVV)

We look forward to receiving your meaningful online application (in a PDF file) by 19.12.2022 to d.braun@uni-saarland.de. Please include the reference number W2210 in the subject line of the e-mail. Shortlisted applicants will be informed before Christmas and online interviews will be conducted between 09.-12.01.2023.

If you have any questions, please contact us for assistance.

Daniela Braun: d.braun@uni-saarland.de; Ann-Kathrin-Reinl: AnnKathrin.Reinl@UGent.be