Closing date: 19 June 2016

Hours: 38 hours per week (full-time)

Vacancy number: 16-289

The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (FMG) of theUniversity of Amsterdam (UvA) is the largest educational and research institution in the social sciences in the Netherlands, and one of the highest-ranked such institutions in Europe.

The Department of Political Sciences is one of the departments of the FMG. The College of Social Sciences (CSW) and the Graduate School of Social Sciences (GSSS) are responsible for the under- graduate and graduate teaching programmes in Political Science. The research within the Department is conducted in research pro- grammes of the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR). The AISSR unites the social science research of the UvA, and is one of the largest research institutes in Europe.

The position:

The Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam invites application for a three-year postdoctoral research fellow- ship. The position is part of the research project ‘Legitimacy Beyond Consent’, led by Dr Enzo Rossi and funded by the Dutch National Science Organisation (NWO).

Brief description of NWO Vidi Project ‘Legitimacy Beyond Consent: Confronting Transnational and Supranational Power Structures’:

The idea of a crisis of democracy is frequently invoked to explain a range of phenomena plaguing European states in the era of de- clining national sovereignty: disaffection, polarisation, fragmen- tation. The crisis is usually understood as a crisis of legitimacy, and so as a failure of gathering consent through representation. This project challenges that understanding of the crisis by proposing a novel account of legitimacy, driving a wedge between consent and representation. Traditional theories of democratic legitimacy are voluntaristic: representation legitimises the exercise of political power through consent, by making it receptive to the will of those over whom it is exercised. This project challenges democratic voluntarism in all its forms: those grounded in actual or hypothetical consent, as well as those grounded in deliberative and aggregative proceduralism. It abandons voluntarism by acknowledging that legitimate authority is necessarily coercive, but does so without thereby falling into an idea that 'might is right'. The alternative proposal is critical responsiveness: political coercion can be legitimate when it is responsive to stakeholders’ values (vetted for ideological distortions).
The shift from a voluntar- ist to a values-based theory of legitimacy enables exploration of two key, related, questions posed by globalisation to European democracies:

- What is the proper remit of the supranational authority of the European Union?
- To what extent can the transnational political power wielded by economic actors (corporations, IMF, WTO) be made compatible with liberal democracy?

Theories of legitimacy should solve Rousseau’s paradox: 'Man is born free: but everywhere he is in chains.' This project responds to the insight that solutions that dissolve the chains—that is, that show that legitimate authority is not coercive—are not satisfactory. The way to tackle the paradox is ask whether the chains make sense in the light of the values of those who bear them.

Tasks:

- Conducting research within the framework of the above-described project;
- contributing to the organisational aspects of the project and to knowledge valorisation activities;
- contributing to and initiating bids for further external research funding;
- teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level (in English, 50%);
- assisting in the supervision of a doctoral candidate.

Requirements:

- A completed doctoral thesis in political science, philosophy, or a cognate field;
- an ongoing programme of research and publications, focused on international peer-reviewed journals and/or books published by internationally recognised academic presses;
- broad general knowledge in Political Theory;
- ability to provide excellent and inspiring teaching at both under-graduate and postgraduate levels.

Further information:

Additional information about the vacancy may be obtained from Dr Enzo Rossi - uva.academia.edu/enzorossi

Application procedure:

Applications should comprise a letter of motivation, a full CV including a list of publications and contact details of three referees, and a brief statement of future research plans, with a particular focus on how they may overlap with the themes of the ‘Legitimacy Beyond Consent’ project. These should be sent electronically in one document, preferably as a pdf-file. Please do not send us additional documentation at this stage. The deadline for applications is 19 June 2016. Please send your application to [log in to unmask] with the vacancy number as subject.

Please note that incomplete applications will not be considered.

No agencies please

Appointment:

Based on a full-time appointment (38 hours per week) the gross monthly salary will range from €3,399 to €4,654 (scale 11) depending on experience. The salary will be increased by 8 % holiday allowance and 8,3 % annual bonus. The Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities is applicable. The appointment will be temporary for three years, starting in autumn 2016 or as soon as possible thereafter.

Apologies for cross-posting.

Enzo Rossi  
Dept of Political Science, University of Amsterdam
Co-editor, European Journal of Political Theory
uva.academia.edu/enzorossi