Fixed Term Contract from 30 September 2013 to 29 September 2016       

Applications are invited for the post of Erasmus Mundus CITRINE PhD Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS). The Department is seeking to appoint an outstanding doctoral researcher in order to consolidate PAIS’s position as a world-leading unit of research in Political Theory. Our objective is to train internationally excellent doctoral students to acquire the skills set to become the future world leaders in their chosen sub-field. You will be an outstanding candidate with a clearly focused, ambitious and independent research agenda in Political Theory with a focus on the conditions required for the emergence of a legitimate European Foreign Policy. You will be expected to address the research question of ‘What are the normative legitimacy conditions for how the European Union currently acts outside of its borders?’ The research will address the following critical dimensions: How the normative notions of permissibility and obligation should be theorised when considering the EU as an actor in international affairs; and, how well equipped state-focused and cosmopolitan political theories of legitimacy are in addressing questions about the legitimacy of EU external action.

You will be part of the Department’s Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctoral Degree Programme. GEM (‘Globalisation, the European Union and Multilateralism’) is an integrated transnational doctoral research and training programme that enables students to spend year one at PAIS or one of the other core partner universities, followed by a mobility year under supervision at another core partner, followed by a final year back at the home university or with 6 months at another partner in the consortium. The result is the completion of a jointly supervised doctoral dissertation and a double degree from the home and mobility institution. PAIS’s full partners in the GEM School are the Free University of Brussels, LUISS Guido Carli in Rome, the University of Geneva and the University of Bielefeld. The wider partners in the GEM programme are Boston (USA), Waseda (Japan), ITAM (Mexico City), Fudan (China) and the United Nations University in Bruges.

You will hold an MA in a relevant discipline (awarded or near completion) and have the ability to act as an independent researcher. You will have evidence of a clear research agenda in the designated field and a willingness to work in relevant research clusters.     

We would particularly welcome applications from female candidates and those from a minority ethnic background, as they are currently under represented within the department.