UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
School of Social Sciences
Department of Politics & Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity
ESRCDoctoral Studentship on PATHWAYS project
Applications are invited for TWO 3-year Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)funded PhD Studentship based in the Discipline Area of Politics under the supervision of Dr Maria Sobolewska. The studentship comprises an annual stipend of £13,863(for UK students only) and payment of fees up to the level charged for UK/EU students (approximately £3900) and is available starting in October 2014.
PATHWAYS
The studentships form part of the ESRC funded PATHWAYS project, which is a seven country study of substantive and descriptive representation of immigrants and immigrant-origin minorities in Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Greece, Italy and the Netherland. The students will have autonomy to craft their own project, as long as they use the data generated by the project and focus on the projectresearch questions. See below for further particulars.
The project offers an excellent opportunity for the students to develop their skills through working with experienced investigatorson a cutting edge research project. The student will be fully integrated into the project, and encouraged to assist the investigators with project development. The student will analyseunique new empirical data and will be supported in any additional data collection they want to conduct. The project provides a chance to form meaningful networks with the other case-study investigators and PhD project students based in other countries as the budget allows the students to travel to Germany for team meetings.
The students will work within the world-leading research networks and an active community of post-graduate students of the Department ofPolitics at the University of Manchester and the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE). Candidates for these studentships should have a strong background in empirical methods and should be open to both quantitative and qualitative analysis (training will be provided), but could be drawn from a range of disciplines, including political science, sociology, geography, social statistics, and economics.
Admissions Criteria
Applicants must have a first-class or high upper second-class honours degree (or equivalent qualification), preferably in social science. They must also have a UK Masters degree (or overseas equivalent) in a relevant subject, with significant training in relevant quantitative skills such as survey design, quantitative data analysis and statistics. Previous experience with statistical software, in particular STATA and SPSS, is desirable.
How to apply
Applicants are required to provide: (i) an initial research proposal of no more than 1,000 words (not including references) setting out the research they would like to develop within the PATHWAYS project; (ii) a300 word statement explaining how their proposal research relates to the PATHWAYS project (iii) a full CV.If the applicant is shortlisted for an interview a sample of academic writing, in English, will also be required.
Applications (research proposal, statement and CV) should be emailed to: . The successful candidate will be required to submit a full University of Manchester on-line application, plus supporting documents (two academic references and degree transcripts) to fulfill the normal admissions process.
Deadline
The deadline for applications is30 April 2014. Candidates may be called for interview in mid-May 2014.
FURTHER PARTICULARS
PATHWAYS
PATHWAYS is a tightly integrated, internationally co-operative and comparative project of social scientists at British, French, German and Dutch universities, seeking to advance knowledge in two areas: (a) the descriptive representation of citizens of immigrant origin (CIO) in the legislative assemblies of seven European countries (Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands and Spain) at the national and regional levels (where meaningful regional assemblies exist); and (b), for the first time, the parliamentary activities of representatives of immigrant origin (substantive representation). These are our outcomes of interest. In a second step, we will seek to build on, test and (where necessary) extend, explanations of the variations in representation we observe. These are based on empirical theories of political representation in liberal democracies with a particular emphasis on the impact of political institutions and macro-level contextual factors on representation.
We will collect data on the variation in the parliamentary 'presence' of CIOs across seven European democracies at national and regional levels of government, and analyse it in terms of age, gender, national origin, career and political history and examine the primary socio-economic, political and institutional factors that affect the access of CIOs to elected office. For the first time, we will also collect comparable data on parliamentary activity of CIOs across the seven countries and analyse whether there is a relationship between descriptive and substantive representation (as hypothesised, e.g., by critical mass and mainstreaming approaches).As a result, we will provide the social science and stakeholder community with original data on the political representation of CIOs in seven European countries - some of which have been neglected in previous studies - making the data freely available.
Secondly, we offer innovative explanations of cross-national, cross-regional, cross-level and diachronic variations in descriptive and substantive representation by building on a flexible analytical framework, which allows engaging with a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches (e.g., social capital, political institutions, social networks, political opportunity structures, path dependency, rational choice, sociological approaches)’
The main substantive questions that this research project seeks to address are the following:
How many CIOs gained elected office in national and regional assemblies?
Are certain groups of CIOs better represented than others (on the basis of gender,
national ancestry, ethnicity, etc.)?
How do CIO elected representatives differ from other MPs in terms of professional
background, career and parliamentary behaviour?
Are CIOs’ substantive interests represented by non-minority representatives and, if so,
how?
Are there significant cross-national variations in levels of descriptive and substantive
representation? What explains them? In investigating these questions and seeking to explain differences, we will examine the relevance of macro and meso-level factors for the dynamics of representation of CIOs. Thus, in the explanatory stage of the project we will address the following aspects:
How do electoral systems shape the opportunities for CIOs to gain elected office?
How do the candidate selection methods employed by the various political parties affect
CIOs’ chances of securing nomination, a necessary condition of getting elected?
How do the attitudes and mobilization patterns (i.e. voting behaviour and organisational formation) of the majority population, as well as of CIOs, affect the chances of the latter being selected and winning elections?
What difference does the ‘philosophy’ of immigrant integration make?
Have recent hybrid models of incorporation (combining multicultural and assimilationist elements) led to a convergence in the way CIOs are represented, or is there some form of path dependency in relation to prior models of incorporation?
PhD positions on PATHWAYS PROJECT at the University of Manchester
The two PhDs based in Manchester are to focus primarily on the BRITISH case study.
Any application relevant to the areas covered by the project will be considered, but the links with the project must be made clear and the use of project-collected data must be evident in the proposals.