PhD Position Negotiating Democracy in Amsterdam

Descrizione

PhD Position Negotiating Democracy in Amsterdam Sintesi in italiano (traduzione automatica): L'organizzazione offre una posizione di dottorato a Amsterdam, focalizzata sulla ricerca della democrazia locale e delle contestazioni. Il progetto esplora come il comune di Amsterdam, i movimenti sociali e le organizzazioni della società civile negoziano la democrazia locale. Il candidato lavorerà a stretto contatto con attivisti e iniziative cittadine, conducendo ricerche qualitative attraverso interviste e analisi documentale. È richiesta una laurea magistrale in scienze politiche, sociologia o discipline affini, con specializzazione in metodi qualitativi. È necessaria la conoscenza della lingua olandese, poiché il lavoro di campo si svolgerà ad Amsterdam. Il dottorando contribuirà anche a dibattiti accademici e parteciperà all'insegnamento nei programmi educativi. Do you have a passion for researching contestation and local democracy? We now have the opportunity for you to join this PhD project that explores how the municipality of Amsterdam, social movements and civil society organisations negotiate local democracy. You will work in close collaboration with the municipality, activists and citizen initiatives to study the fault lines of contemporary democratic life in the city. Negotiating Democracy: Social Movements, Civil Society, and the Municipality of Amsterdam Liberal democracy is under strain. Polarisation is intensifying, trust in institutions is eroding, and the political space for civic action is increasingly contested. At the same time, citizen participation has gained new momentum, and many European cities — Amsterdam among them — are experimenting with more participatory forms of governance. Amsterdam is at once a platform and a context for democratic contestation. Some civic actors are primarily locally oriented, advancing neighbourhood-level or city-wide demands; others use the city as a site of struggle in conflicts that are fundamentally national or transnational in character — around migration, climate, Palestine, or policing. The municipality must navigate both, while simultaneously positioning itself in relation to a national political landscape that has grown more polarised and has introduced more restrictive measures toward protest and civil society. How Amsterdam responds to these pressures and how civic actors interpret and respond to the municipality's choices is itself a key question the project seeks to understand. The project takes an interpretive approach to examine the relational, procedural, and substantive dimensions of these dynamics. It asks how local politicians, administrators, activists, and civil society actors make sense of each other, interpret each other's actions, and construct competing stories and frames about democratic roles and expectations. Crucially, the project does not presuppose which issue domains will prove most contentious. Instead, it follows tensions where they are actually mounting, allowing the substantive stakes of democratic contestation to emerge from the research itself. Particular attention goes to how social movement and civil society organisations navigate the tension between institutional engagement and autonomous contestation: between the pull of access and resources on the one hand, and the risk of co-optation on the other. The central question guiding the project is: How do Amsterdam's municipal government and local civic actors negotiate the boundaries of local democracy, and under what conditions do their interactions move between cooperation and conflict? The PhD project will be supervised by dr. Conny Roggeband, dr. Imrat Verhoeven, and dr. Sander van Haperen. Applicants are invited to develop a research proposal based on this project outline; please use the template referenced below (under “Application process and contact information”). The proposal allows you to specify and elaborate how you intend to address the questions posed in this advertisement. What are you going to do Conduct interpretive qualitative fieldwork including interviews, document analysis, and social media analysis with civil society organisations, social movement actors, politicians, and municipal officials in Amsterdam Analyse how these actors mutually perceive and evaluate democratic roles, forms of civic action, and each other's conduct as their interactions move between collaboration and conflict Contribute to academic debates on urban democracy, social movements, and civil society–state relations through a PhD dissertation and publications Teach in our educational programmes (10% of appointment) What do you have to offer Candidates must have: Dutch language proficiency (fieldwork will be conducted in Amsterdam) A master’s degree in political science, sociology, or a related social science, with a specialisation in qualitative interpretiv Annuncio in inglese. Fonte: Euraxess (Commissione europea).