Postdoctoral Researchers in Democratic Theory

Offer

UCLouvain is hiring 3 Postdoctoral Researchers in Democratic Theory

Job Id : SF  38248
Internal and external job posting until...

For institute Institut supérieur de Philosophie
Main campus :   Louvain-la-Neuve
Fixed-term, part-time (90%) contract, until August 2030 
Starting date : September 2026

Introduction

The Hoover Chair of Economic and Social Ethics at UCLouvain (Belgium), as part of the ERC Synergy Research Project POPGOV, is recruiting 3 Postdoctoral Researchers with a specialization in democratic theory. The successful candidates will be part of the research project “Popular Government in Global Perspective: History, Principles, Institutions, and Experimentations” (POPGOV) co-led by Udit Bhatia (King's College London), Bruno Leipold (London School of Economics and Political Science), Pierre-Etienne Vandamme (UCLouvain) and Yanina Welp (University of Girona). The positions are 90% appointments for a period of four years, which allows successful candidates to keep a 10% teaching activity elsewhere if they wish.

Job description

Candidates should have completed their PhD in Philosophy or Political Theory by the post start date. They should have a strong interest in democratic theory, and more precisely, competing democratic models or instruments of popular empowerment, demonstrated by publications. We will base our assessment on the quality of the publications, the proximity to our project's topic, and the envisioned integration in our research team. The ideal candidate will combine a specialization in normative democratic theory with a research interest in the history of political ideas, as well as a willingness to engage with the empirical and globally comparative approaches mobilized by the wider research group.

The wider POPGOV project seeks to uncover the principles and institutions of popular government, which empower ordinary citizens rather than socio-economic elites (see our temporary website for more details). The four Principal Investigators mentioned above will each recruit and host a team of postdoctoral researchers to contribute to the wider project. The work package to be carried out at UCLouvain under the supervision of Pierre-Etienne Vandamme will focus on competing visions for the future of democracy, including lottocracy, council democracy, liquid democracy, and hybrid democratic models. Other models not listed here could be envisioned. Ideally, each postdoc would study a different model.

Candidates are expected to contribute to the success of the research team by working collaboratively, both with their UCLouvain colleagues and the wider POPGOV team.

The starting date can be discussed.

Required qualifications and skills

• PhD in Philosophy or Political Theory
• Publications in peer-reviewed international journals
• Demonstrated interest in normative democratic theory
• Interest in competing democratic models (electoral democracy, lottocracy, council democracy, liquid democracy, ...) and forms of popular empowerment (elections, parties, unions, sortition, referendums, recall, imperative mandate, popular assemblies, ...)
• Strong analytical skills
• Interest in philosophy, history of ideas, empirical political science, and comparative political thought

Application process

To apply, please upload on this platform:

• Your academic CV
• A 1-2 page motivation letter exposing your motivations to work on this particular project, explaining how your past and present research connect to it, and how you would like to contribute to it.

A shortlist of 6 to 9 candidates will be invited for an online interview with the Principal Investigators of the POPGOV project. The provisional schedule is the following:

• First selection and notification by the end of April
• Interviews in May
• Final decision in May-June
• Start in September or later