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FULL PROFESSORSHIP "POLITICAL SCIENCE: COMPARATIVE POLITICS" (W2/W3)

Employer
Leuphana
Location
Germany
Salary
Salary Not specified
Date posted
Feb 18, 2021

THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES AT LEUPHANA UNIVERSITY LÜNEBURG INVITES APPLICATIONS FOR THE FOLLOWING PROFESSORSHIP AT THE INSTITUTE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE (IPS) AND THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF DEMOCRACY (CSD):

FULL PROFESSORSHIP POLITICAL SCIENCE: COMPARATIVE POLITICS (W2/W3)

You are passionate about addressing current societal challenges in the 21st century in your research and teaching, focussing the transformation of modern democracy and its foundations in a vibrant, open and humane civil society. You are committed to academic excellence and societal relevance in your work and create an inspiring and dedicated environment in research, teaching, and learning. You bring your experience of international collaboration and ideally long-term international research and/or teaching stays into our academic community.

With a focus on research on democracy, the comparison of political systems, and methods of comparative politics, you analyse such challenges as climate change, digitalization, migration and social integration, individualization, value change, globalization and the like from a political science perspective open to interdisciplinary cooperation. Your specific and distinct profile in the comparative analysis of democratic transformations is demonstrated by relevant projects as well as publications and complements one or more of the focal areas of research at the CSD. You have widely published articles in relevant peer-reviewed national and in particular international journals or with respected publishing houses and bring experience in and initiatives for attracting external research funding for developing innovative research opportunities. You are enthusiastic about developing research on democracy at the CSD further in cooperation with colleagues from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and beyond as part of Leuphana University’s Cultural Research Initiative. You are eager to elaborate a joint agenda with researchers from the Hamburg Institute for Social Research (HIS) and the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA) in Hamburg, among others. You are active in shaping the democratic framing of Leuphana’s university-wide profile themes under the headings of sustainability, civil society and digitalization. You demonstrate a strong dedication and (for W2: ideally) experience in creating broader collaborative and interdisciplinary research teams and themes, which aim specifically at large-scale project frames, in particular EU-Horizon grants, European Research Council (ERC) grants and Coordinated Programs by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

In teaching, you participate in all study programmes at the IPS where you cover the entire breadth of Comparative Politics as a sub-field of political science and bring in your unique research interests. You are dedicated to the highest standards of university didactics/innovative approaches to teaching and learning and commit to the unique Leuphana teaching model. You actively engage in developing study programmes at the undergraduate and graduate levels as well as in academic self-government and are open to contribute to Leuphana’s CPD study programme. The proven capability and willingness to teach courses in English is a prerequisite, as is the commitment to participate in teaching evaluations and the development of courses at Leuphana.

For this position, we are seeking a committed researcher with an outstanding international research profile in combination with a track record of unique ideas put into action, impacting their field as well as society. Your academic work gives evidence of innovative contributions to teaching and research, your talent for cooperating with partners inside and outside academia and your strong commitment to interdisciplinary dialogue. Women are especially invited to apply.

You have very good English skills and have already taught courses in English. If you do not yet have a sufficient knowledge of German, we expect you to be willing to acquire a sufficient knowledge of the German language within an appropriate period of time.

Formal requirements according to § 25 of the Universities Act of Lower Saxony (Niedersächsisches Hochschulgesetz, NHG) are a university degree in political science; your aptitude for teaching; and your ability to engage in independent academic research as demonstrated by the outstanding quality of your dissertation; and additional academic achievements obtained i.e. in the course of being an assistant professor, during your postdoctoral lecture qualification (German: Habilitation) or other achievements recognized as being equivalent to a postdoctoral qualification.

At Leuphana you will find an academic community that is open to changes in perspective and cultivates the dialogue among the different disciplines as well as between research and practice. With spirit and initiative, we address the challenges of civil society in the 21st century. Pursuing our idea of liberal education, our students are enabled to think, question and act upon it. Our professors foster the awareness of gender and diversity aspects in teaching as well as research.

For further information, please contact the dean of the faculty, Prof. (apl.) Dr. Ulf Wuggenig (ulf.wuggenig@leuphana.de) or the head of the institute for Political Science, Prof. Dr. Tobias Lenz (tobias.lenz@leuphana.de).

Leuphana University is an equal opportunities employer.

Please submit your application consisting of the following materials in two separate PDF files: a) motivation letter, CV, copies of academic degrees and b) three relevant publications. Applications should be sent preferably by email to beko@leuphana.de or to the President of Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Post Box 2440, Lüneburg D-21314 by April 5, 2021. Please be aware that we cannot return application documents sent physically.

By submitting your application, you consent to your data being stored and processed for the purpose of the recruitment process. Please note our Data Protection Notice for Applicants:
in English: https://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/newspool/stellenausschreibungen/professuren/Datenschutzhinweise_Professuren_EN.pdf
in German: https://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/newspool/stellenausschreibungen/professuren/Datenschutzhinweise_Professuren.pdf

CONTEXT OF THE PROFESSORSHIP

Leuphana University has developed multi-award-winning study model with three schools, which is still unique in Germany today. The Leuphana College offers a Bachelor's programme within the framework of a uniform, interdisciplinary study model for students who want to work independently and responsibly and are not satisfied with specialist knowledge alone. In cultural research, Leuphana University has the largest faculty in Germany. The professorship makes a significant and original contribution to the profile and reputation of the interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) through research on transformation of modern democracy with a specific focus on comparative aspects, especially cross-nationally. Close interdisciplinary bonds also exist beyond cultural studies, namely with economics and law, with which the Institute for Political Science (IPS) runs a Master’s programme in Public Economy, Law, and Politics (PELP).

The professorship’s research priorities refer to the transformation of democracy and thus complement the CSD’s established focus of research on democracy within the framework of Leuphana’s Cultural Research Initiative at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. For future collaborations at the CSD and beyond, the professorship should bring knowledge and competences that relate to the entirety of political system research (structures, functions and their transformation) as well as to comparative research on political processes and policies in a national and international context.

The professorship is of critical value for the continuation of both high-quality research and teaching, including intense supervision and mentoring at the undergraduate, graduate, PhD and postdoctoral levels, that further strengthens the reputation of the CSD and the IPS in the German and international political science community as places of academic excellence. The professorship is primarily responsible for research and teaching. Activities in the field of knowledge transfer and further education are also encouraged. It represents the political science sub-field of Comparative Politics in its entire scope, especially in teaching. This requires in-depth knowledge and skills in the field of comparative methods, drawing from the theoretical and methodological diversity of comparative analysis of political systems and their social, economic and cultural contexts. In addition to the research priorities mentioned above, specific skills in the field of methods of comparative political science are expected.

The successful applicant is distinguished by relevant publications in peer-reviewed national and in particular international journals or with respected publishing houses. The applicant pursues a research agenda that coincides with one or more of the CSD’s core research areas and is willing to pursue collaborative research initiatives and interdisciplinary cooperation in line with Leuphana’s Cultural Research Initiative at the CSD and beyond. The successful applicant has a record of work experience at German and international research institutions and is visibly engaged in national and international political science debates in Comparative Politics. The successful applicant has a distinguished reputation based on internationally visible publications and success in attracting research grants. The comparative analysis of political systems, covering aspects such as problems of representation, party government, or party-voter alignment allows addressing current challenges to democratic governance from a political science perspective open to interdisciplinary cooperation. Thus, the professorship will also make its own scientifically sound contribution to the transformation of democracy and the challenges this entails for civil society in the 21st century.

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