Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science “Citizen Responses to European Union Communication”

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At the Department of Sociology and Political Science (ISS), NTNU Trondheim there is a vacant temporary position as Postdoctoral Fellow in political science for a period of three years, with 67% research and 33% teaching obligation. The position is connected to the research group Elections, Values, and Political Communication

The position is intended to engage in a research project on “Citizen Responses to European Union Communication”. European Union (EU) institutions are acutely aware that their legitimacy is precarious. Many citizens are skeptical toward the EU and oppose membership. EU institutions therefore invest a lot of resources into communication. Through communicative authority exercise, they try to bolster the EU’s legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens. The EU sends out daily press releases, reports to specific sectoral stake holders, its officials travel to all member states to engage with citizens, and every major EU institution and official has their own social media accounts, to reach out to citizens directly.

The project “Citizen Responses to European Union Communication” sets out to investigate the effect of this self-legitimation by the EU on citizen opinions. Do citizens become more supportive of the EU when exposed to communication by EU institutions and officials? Which types of communicative authority exercise elicit what type of responses? What are the causal mechanisms linking communicative practice to citizen opinion? Are these patterns uniform across member states? These are research questions that this postdoc position could address, for example through a comparative experimental survey design. What exactly the project will focus on within this framework, and how, will be up to the postdoctoral fellow to define.
The postdoctoral fellowship position is a temporary position where the main goal is to qualify for work in senior academic positions.
You will report to the Head of Department.