Postdoctoral Researcher in Computational Social Science

The position is part of Professor Sven-Oliver Proksch’s ERC-funded project MINORITYRULE. The project investigates how minority governments affect the intensity of political polarization in parliamentary debates and election campaigns, how the responsiveness of minority governments to public opinion differs from those of majority governments at the national and supranational level, and how citizens evaluate the legitimacy of decisions taken by minority governments.

YOUR TASKS

• Take a leading role in the project’s work package on political polarization. This includes developing and applying methods for multilingual text-based measurement of political polarization in parliamentary
• debates and election campaigns.
• Conduct and publish high-quality research within the context of MINORITYRULE
• Collaborate with other project members and supervise research assistants
• Provide support for project-related management and administrative tasks
• Contribute to the intellectual exchange at the Institute

YOUR PROFILE

• A doctoral degree in political science, computational social science or data science (or close to completion) with an interest in political communication, political representation and legislative politics
• Experience with computational text analysis methods, including large language models
• Strong programming skills in R and/or Python
• Strong interest and ability to produce high-quality and high-impact research, as demonstrated through international peer-reviewed publications
• Ability to work in a team, and ability to work independently
• Strong command of English. Knowledge of German and other European languages is an asset

Please send your application with proof of the required qualifications without a photo by email (in one pdf-file) to: cccp-jobs@uni-koeln.de.

Applications should be submitted in English and include a motivation letter, CV, writing sample, transcripts, and names of two references. The reference number is Wiss2403-16.
The application deadline is 5 May 2024.

For further inquiries, please contact Professor Sven-Oliver Proksch (so.proksch@uni-koeln.de).