Doctoral Position in Political Science, Completion Funding

Universität Konstanz

Doctoral Position in Political Science, Completion Funding (part-time 63 %, E 13 TV-L)

Reference No.: 2025/277

Starting date April 1st, 2026. The position is available for 1.5 years (1 Apr 2026 – 30 Sep 2027). The project “Nationalist Persuasion, Legacies of Transition, and Democratic Backsliding in Europe” (funded by the German Research Foundation) at the Department of Politics and Public Administration is seeking a doctoral researcher with excellent quantitative methods skills. The project studies how illiberal elites use nationalist appeal to gain and maintain electoral support in post-fascist, compared to post-communist European societies. A module on all European democracies (module 1) is combined with focus groups (module 2) that inform survey experiments (module 3) in selected countries: Spain and Poland, East and West Germany and Croatia. The working language is English. We are seeking support for module 3 during the remaining 1.5 years of the project. The position is ideal for completion of an ongoing, well-advanced PhD project, ideally on a topic related to the project.
For further information on the position, please contact Christina Zuber at christina.zuber@uni-konstanz.de. Please submit your application until 5 January 2026 via our Online Application Portal. Interviews will be held in mid January 2026. Please include a letter of motivation with a description of your research experience and interests (including a short overview of your PhD project), CV, BA and MA certificates and merge all documents into a single PDF. The University of Konstanz is committed to ensuring an environment that provides equal opportunities and promotes diversity, as well as a good balance between university and family life. As an equal opportunity employer, we strive to increase the number of women working in research and teaching. We also support working couples through our dual career programme. Persons with disabilities are explicitly encouraged to apply. They will be given preference if appropriately qualified (contact sbv@uni-konstanz.de, + 49 7531 88-4016).