Four three-year postdoctoral positions in the project Slow-Motion Democracy

The Department of Political Science at Aarhus University invites applications for four full-time, three-year postdoctoral positions in SLOMODEMO (Slow-Motion Democracy)—an ERC Advanced Grant project (project no. 101198983), led by professor Kees van Kersbergen.

Start date is preferably 1 September 2026 but is flexible by mutual agreement.

The research project

SLOMODEMO examines how liberal democracies cope with a growing mismatch between the accelerating speed of societal change and the slow pace of democratic decision-making and problem-solving. The overall project studies the trade-offs between efficient problem-solving and democratic quality. Empirically, SLOMODEMO develops new measures of social acceleration and investigates constitutional performance, legislative responsiveness, citizen and politician preferences, and decision-making under time pressure across eight democracies (Denmark, Estonia, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK, and the US).

The four postdoc tracks

We welcome applications for one (or more) of the following tracks.

 

Postdoc 1: Social Acceleration & Constitutional Performance

Study how social acceleration shapes constitutional practice and tensions between formal rules, institutional performance, and the constitutionality of decision-making (2000–2024) using a most-different-systems design across the eight case countries. Tasks include assembling and coding a cross-national database (e.g., constitutional change proposals, court rulings), and employing supervised machine learning/ natural language processing to scale content. Examples (not must-haves) of relevant skills include comparative politics/public law, computational text analysis, and supervised machine learning/natural language processing on legal corpora.

 

Postdoc 2: Lawmaking Institutions & Legislative Responsiveness

Build a comparative dataset tracking the speed and mode of lawmaking in four policy areas (labour, education, internet regulation, artificial intelligence) across the eight countries (2000–2024), covering primary, secondary, and (where relevant) judge-made law; use supervised machine learning to classify changes (e.g., fixing old laws vs. addressing new problems). Examples (not must-haves) of relevant skills include legislative data collection, document parsing at scale, and applied machine learning for text categorization and analysis.

 

Postdoc 3: Citizen–Politician Survey Experiments

Design and field cross-national survey experiments with citizens and email-based experiments with local politicians to test how time pressure and problem characteristics shift preferences between democratic process and speedy problem-solving. Examples (not must-haves) of relevant skills include survey experimental design, causal inference, quantitative data analysis, and cross-national fieldwork coordination.

 

Postdoc 4: Survey & Laboratory Experiments on Decision-Making Under Cognitive Load

Run survey and lab experiments that manipulate cognitive resources and time pressure to test when people prefer more exclusive/authoritarian decision arrangements versus inclusive ones. Examples (not must-haves) of relevant skills include experimental economics/psychology paradigms, lab administration, and data analysis with behavioral measures.

 

Job description

Across all tracks, you will:

1. Lead and co-author studies within your track and collaborate across the team.
2. Help design data collection, pre-analysis plans, and transparent, reproducible workflows.
3. Contribute to comparative integration across the eight countries and to the project’s publications and outreach.
4. Engage meaningfully with the department’s research community; a minimum of three days on campus each week is expected. 

Teaching

The position includes teaching, equivalent to one seminar per year, which is about 55 hours of class room teaching and examination per year.

 

Support & resources: Each postdoc will have access to student assistants, data-collection funds, and travel/workshop budgets.

 

Your qualifications

• PhD (or near completion) in political science or related fields (e.g., computational social science, law, sociology, psychology, economics), with a profile matching one of the tracks.
• Proficient quantitative or experimental and computational skills applicable to your selected track (see examples above; these are suggestions, not requirements).
• Skill in both solo work and teamwork, showing creativity, cooperation, and a collegial spirit.
• High-level professional English is required. Proficiency in languages of the case countries can be an advantage, depending on project tasks.

 

What we offer

A chance to contribute to a frontier ERC project on democratic problem-solving under social acceleration.

 

A supportive, collegial environment in one of Europe’s leading political science departments, with excellent development opportunities and research support.

 

The Department of Political Science at Aarhus University

With around 130 academic staff members and 40 PhD students, the Department of Political Science is among Europe’s largest political science departments. The research at the department covers most political science disciplines, including public administration, and represents a variety of methodological approaches. We are among Europe’s highest-ranked departments, and our broad research profile enables us to focus on societal problems as they appear in the national and international political arena. This allows us to contribute actively to the development of the discipline. We offer a lively and ambitious research and teaching environment characterized by pluralism and openness. We expect active participation in the activities of the department, which includes being present at the department at least three days per week.
 
For more information about the Department of Political Science, please see here.
 
The Department of Political Science is part of Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University – a top 100 university. Aarhus BSS has achieved the triple-crown AASCB, AMBA and EQUIS accreditations.

 

Further information

For further information on SLOMODEMO and questions about the positions, please contact Prof. Kees van Kersbergen at kvk@ps.au.dk.

 

Questions about the application process can be directed to HR-supporter Line Kristiansen at lmkr@au.dk

 

Place of work

Department of Political Science, Bartholins Allé 7, DK-8000 Aarhus C.

 

International applicant?

Aarhus University offers a broad variety of services for international researchers and accompanying families, including relocation service and career counselling to expat partners. Please find more information here:
https://internationalstaff.au.dk/relocationservice/

Please find more information about research opportunities at Aarhus University here: http://international.au.dk/research/

Aarhus University also offers a Junior Researcher Development Programme targeted at career development for postdocs at AU. You can read more about it here:
http://talent.au.dk/junior-researcher-development-programme/

Terms of employment

The appointment is made in accordance with the Memorandum on Job Structure for Academic Staff at Danish Universities as well as the circular on the Collective Agreement for Academics Employed by the State (in Danish).
The job content and qualification requirements are described in further detail in the Ministerial Order on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Universities.

Application procedure

When you apply for this position it is mandatory to attach the following:

• Application. Please specify which track(s) you wish to be considered for
• Curriculum Vitae. You are encouraged to declare any periods of leave without research activity, including, for example, maternity leave, since your research activities are assessed in relation to your actual research time
• Education (diploma for master's, PhD and possibly higher doctoral degree)
• List of publications (the enclosed publications must be clearly marked on the list of publications)
• Publications. Up to three publications can be included in the application. In the event of several authors the publications must be accompanied by a co-author statement concerning the applicant's share of the collaborative work with the consent of the co-authors. This template may be used for the purpose
• Teaching portfolio. The specific requirements regarding the documentation can be found here

Materials which cannot be uploaded together with the application may be submitted in three copies to Aarhus BSS HR & PhD, Aarhus University, Bartholins Allé 16, DK-8000 Aarhus C.

Read more about how to apply for an academic post at Aarhus BSS here

The evaluation process

After the application deadline, an assessment committee is appointed. Please note that the assessment of applicants is based solely on the material received prior to the application deadline. For further information, see Guidelines for Assessment Committee, Aarhus BSS.
The application must be submitted via Aarhus University’s recruitment system, which can be accessed under the job advertisement on Aarhus University's website.
 

Aarhus University

Aarhus University is an academically diverse and research-intensive university with a strong commitment to high-quality research and education and the development of society nationally and globally. The university offers an inspiring research and teaching environment to its 38,000 students (FTEs) and 8,300 employees, and has an annual revenues of EUR 935 million. Learn more at www.international.au.dk/