Postdoctoral Researcher: Exploring the African Union's Role in International Climate Change Negotiations

Postdoctoral Researcher: Exploring the African Union's Role in International Climate Change Negotiations
Postdoctoral Researcher: Exploring the African Union's Role in International Climate Change Negotiations

Published	Deadline	Location
today	14 May	Nijmegen

Job description

Do you want to be at the forefront of climate negotiations? Do you want to understand the politics behind negotiations around climate policies and the role of diverse institutions and actors in shaping these policies? As a postdoctoral researcher, you will investigate the negotiations between the African Union and international partners on climate policies. You will join a team at Radboud University and an international consortium working on negotiation and agency in policy making in African countries. 

Cooperation policies are negotiated at the multilateral level and are therefore subject to many power relations before they are translated into national policies. National policies in African countries then also follow a top-down approach in their development and implementation, often regardless of local concerns and interests, and including strategies to address environmental vulnerability. There are significant and under-researched frictions that manifest themselves between these policies and policy making practices on the one hand and the lived experiences and local, traditional, and cultural governance systems of communities on the other. This results in conflicting practices, misdirected resources, mistrust in governance, and ever-increasing environmental vulnerabilities and related livelihood insecurity. There is therefore an urgent need to analyse the whole chain of policy-making of climate policies. It is essential to understand top-down processes, including how and why they emerge, in order to both critically reflect on and re-imagine them. The agency of different actors at different levels of governance can only be redesigned in relation to the overall structure of the governance architecture. Within this project, you will focus on the following questions:
●    Who is involved in such negotiations, why and how? 
●    How do the different discourses supported by stakeholders give meaning to the final outcomes? 
●    How can we understand the impact of de jure and de facto inclusive or exclusive processes? 
●    How do alternative governance practices relate to a healthy/unhealthy multilevel democratic system?
●    What are the trade-offs made with other policy fields and objectives in climate policy negotiations? 
With the AU as the central focus of this project, we offer you the opportunity to select other key partners with whom the AU engages, focusing on the significance of their relationships, their agenda-oriented positioning in negotiations, the role of narratives through various modes (including in social media such as Twitter), in the endeavour of shaping a collective agenda.  It is also important to understand the AU itself as an 'actor', considering its role in representing its member states and lower levels of governance in Africa, and how it can shape and influence negotiations with international partners.  
The research position is for two years and does not carry any teaching load. You will be expected to write at least two academic papers on the topic of negotiations between the AU and the international partner of your choice. This research will also be translated into policy advice. Ultimately, you will, with the support of the team, also organise a workshop on the politics of negotiating with different actors, with key actors at the AU and representatives of member states of the AU.

Specifications

• €3974—€5439 per month
• Nijmegen View on Google Maps

Radboud University

Requirements

• You should have a PhD in Economics, Political Science, Environmental Governance or a related field.
• You have demonstrated expertise in political economics and/or institutionalism in the domain of environmental governance.
• You have a background in negotiations and/or experience with regional organisations, particularly the AU.
•  You are able to work as part of a team as well as independently.

Conditions of employment

Fixed-term contract: It concerns a temporary employment for 2 years.

• It concerns an employment for 1.0 FTE.
• The gross monthly salary amounts to a minimum of €3,974 and a maximum of €5,439 based on a 38-hour working week, depending on previous education and number of years of relevant work experience (salary scale 11 ).
• You will receive 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus.
• It concerns a temporary employment for 2 years.
• You will be able to use our Dual Career and Family Care Services . Our Dual Career and Family Care Officer can assist you with family-related support, help your partner or spouse prepare for the local labour market, provide customized support in their search for employment and help your family settle in Nijmegen.
• Working for us means getting extra days off. In case of full-time employment, you can choose between 30 or 41 days of annual leave instead of the legally allotted 20.

Work and science require good employment practices. This is reflected in Radboud University's primary and secondary employment conditions . You can make arrangements for the best possible work-life balance with flexible working hours, various leave arrangements and working from home. You are also able to compose part of your employment conditions yourself, for example, exchange income for extra leave days and receive a reimbursement for your sports subscription. And of course, we offer a good pension plan. You are given plenty of room and responsibility to develop your talents and realise your ambitions. Therefore, we provide various training and development schemes.
Employer
You will be based at the Economics and Business Economics department, where you will join the Chair Group of Economic Theory and Economic Policy. Given the nature of the project, the team at the Nijmegen School of Management at Radboud University will consist of members from the departments of Economics and Business Economics; Political Science; and  Geography, Planning and Environment.
In addition, you will be part of an international consortium working on these questions at different levels of governance, also in connection with stakeholders in Africa, and on related policy fields. The consortium is dedicated to co-creation processes for policy making in Africa, and your research will be extremely valuable to understand how actors are included or excluded and to identify the bottlenecks that need to be addressed. The Nijmegen School of Management (NSM) enables students, institutions and companies, societal actors and governments to play their part in a transformation towards sustainable societies. In doing so, the faculty is committed to Radboud University's mission of  contributing to a healthy, free world with equal opportunities for all.
In the context of our 'Responsible governance for sustainable societies' mission, we address scientific and societal challenges from a good governance perspective. Our work focuses on the topics Beyond Economy, Climate, Inclusivity, Safety, and Democracy. By building, questioning and extending the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), we acknowledge their interrelatedness and focus on a number of grand challenges within society. We contribute to innovation and sustainable growth on topics such as inequality, gender, decent work and poverty. Furthermore we seek to address and resolve environmental and climate challenges.
At NMS, academic research and teaching are carried out in challenging educational programmes. These programmes are offered in the areas of Business Administration; Economics and Business Economics; Geography, Planning and Environment; Political Science; and Public Administration. Academic research takes place within the Institute for Management Research (IMR). Research is carried out within the above-mentioned domains and in interdisciplinary research groups, known as 'hotspots'. NMS is a faculty of Radboud University and has around 350 FTE staff and 5,000 students.
Radboud University

We want to get the best out of science, others and ourselves. Why? Because this is what the world around us desperately needs. Leading research and education make an indispensable contribution to a healthy, free world with equal opportunities for all. This is what unites the more than 24,000 students and 5,600 employees at Radboud University. And this requires even more talent, collaboration and lifelong learning. You have a part to play!

Additional information
For questions about the position, please contact Juliette Alenda-Demoutiez, Assistant Professor at +316 15 54 84 87 or [email protected] .
Radboud University

We want to get the best out of science, others and ourselves. Why? Because this is what the world around us desperately needs. Leading research and education make an indispensable contribution to a healthy, free world with equal opportunities for all.

You have a part to play!

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Application procedure
You can apply until 14 May 2023, exclusively using the button below. Kindly address your application to Juliette Alenda-Demoutiez. Please fill in the application form and attach the following documents:

• A letter of motivation.
• Your CV.
• Two pages with first ideas on how to approach this research in terms of methods, concepts and actors.

The first round of interviews will take place on Thursday 8 and Friday 9 June. The second round of interviews will take place on Friday 16 June. You would preferably begin employment on 1 September 2023.
We can imagine you're curious about our application procedure . It offers a rough outline of what you can expect during the application process, how we handle your personal data and how we deal with internal and external candidates.