Call for 11 funded PhD positions at the Scuola Normale Superiore

The Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, Italy, is calling for applications for 11 fully funded PhD positions in Political Science and Sociology for the academic year 2016-2017.

The program focuses on the following three research areas:

1. Democracy and social movements. In this area, sociological and political science competences converge around political sociology, which bridges the two disciplines through its main focus on the reciprocal influence of political and social transformations. Social movements, civil society, participative democracy, political violence, new media and conflicts are the main concepts addressed in the teaching and research activities. In the best European tradition, the methodological approach will be sensitive to the historical, institutional and cultural specificities, but also oriented to the development of theory.

2. Comparative/global public policy and international governance. This area addresses, in an innovative way, themes such as the comparative analysis of public policies; the global dimension of public policies; the multilevel governance of public policies, that is the structural and procedural characteristics that influence how public policies are decided and implemented in multilevel institutional processes (from the sub-national to the national, and from the supra-national to the international ones, with due attention to the European Union); the structure of regimes and dynamics of international politics (not only foreign policy and defense, but also migration policies, social policies, public health policies, educational policies, energies policies and policies of economic development)

3. Comparative politics and society. This area is oriented towards the comparative analysis of some main politico-institutional processes, focusing on the interactions between political parties, interest groups, civil society and the public opinion. The classical comparative analysis, based on cross-national comparison, is backed up by the study of processes that are territorially multilevel, such as Europeanization and globalization, in the political, but also economic, social, and cultural spheres.

The grant is for four years, and also provides full coverage of research expenses (conferences, summer schools, research periods abroad).

The activities will take place in Florence at the Scuola Normale Superiore (Institute of Human and Social Sciences), where the Faculty is exxclusively devoted to PhD teaching and supervision.

The deadlines for application are:

March 15, 2016 (to start in fall 2016)

August 30, 2016 (to start in winter 2017)

For more information, check out the full call for applications.