Salary: scholarship of approx 13.500 euro per year, renewable up to a maximum of three years.

The Graduate School in Social and Political Sciences of the University of Milan is accepting applications for admission to the Ph.D. Programme in Political Studies.

The School offers 15 Ph.D. positions, covered by scholarships. Detailed information on how to submit applications will be provided by the Call for Application. Deadline for Application is set on 29^th November 2013.

From the Academic Year 2013-2014, the Graduate School hosts the NASP-WEST project (Network for the Advancement in Social and Political Studies) which involves a network of universities in Northern Italy: Brescia, Università Cattolica, Genova, Milano, Pavia, Piemonte Orientale and Torino.

The partnership for the Ph.D. programme in Political Studies involves:

• ASERI – GraduateSchool of Economics and International Relations (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore);
• Department of Political Sciences – DISPO (Università di Genova);
• Department of Social and Political Sciences – SPS (Università di Milano);
• Department of Political and Social Sciences (Università di Pavia).

The aim of the doctoral Programme in Political Studies is to train highly-skilled professionals who can undertake research within academic institutions, think tanks and research centers, as well as provide consultancy for political, economic, public or private organizations.

The Ph.D. Programme offers a two-levels training program. First, the acquisition of a common background on the most up-to-date knowledge and methods in the field of political science and political philosophy. Second, a more personalized training subdivided in four main paths of specialization.

The path on Institutions and Public Policy focuses on the analysis of contemporary political systems and their related issues, such as the functioning of parliaments, governments, and other political institutions at the national, local and European levels, the definitions of welfare programs, the evaluation of public policies, the processes of democratization.

The path on International Studies aims to provide the tools to interpret the international dimension of politics and the processes of mutual conditioning between the domestic and external spheres by discussing the main themes of the theory of International Relations, and analyzing the most important sub-regional systems and the main international actors’ foreign policies.

The path on Public Opinion, Political Communication and Political Behaviour delves into the analysis of the electoral processes, the role that the main actors involved play, their strategies of communication with the citizens, and how the latter build, express and translate into electoral behaviours their attitudes towards politics.

The path on Political Theory offers an in-depth study of the main paradigms that orient the contemporary debate on political philosophy, normative political theory, and applied ethics, and provides the necessary competences to build political arguments, evaluate their theoretical and practical implications, elaborate conceptual frameworks to treat politically relevant issues.

The doctorate programme extends over a three years period.

First year is spent in Italy and is devoted to lecture courses and high-level seminars. The second year is partly spent abroad and is devoted to highly-focused courses, to the formulation of a research project and to the initial drafting of the thesis. The third year is entirely devoted to the thesis. All classes and teaching activities are in English.

For information about Admission requirement and application procedures please refer to the Apply button.