PhD position ‘Survivor. The selection process of political elites in Europe’

Who becomes politically active and succeeds in a political career? The selection process for politicians can be visualized as a ladder, beginning with the initial ambition of citizens to run for office and culminating in the "survival" of national MPs at the top. This Vidi grant-funded project by the Dutch Research Council NWO, based at the Ethics, Governance and Society (EGS) department of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, explores how personality traits influence this selection process. At each step of the ladder, we find people who do or do not have the ambition to climb. Among those who aspire to climb, we find people that do and do not make it. How do these people differ from each other in terms of personality traits? And crucially, which personality traits do European citizens deem desirable traits for politicians?

This interdisciplinary project applies personality psychology models to provide unparalleled insights into the traits of (aspiring) politicians. Here we are particularly interested in so-called virtue related traits like honesty-humility and the traits from the Dark Triad (e.g., narcissism) and Light Triad (e.g., faith in humanity). The project examines the impact of these and other personality traits at several essential stages of the selection process: from the nascent ambition of citizens (the bottom of the ladder), to the progressive ambition of local politicians, to the promotion and retention of national MPs (the top of the ladder). At each step, we identify how personality traits shape political ambition and the fulfilment of this ambition. We also consider the role of (party) voters and selectorates within this selection process. The project team comprises a PhD candidate, a postdoc and the principal investigator (PI), Dr. Marc van de Wardt.

As a PhD candidate, you will write a dissertation, consisting of several research articles, on the personality traits that citizens across Europe deem desirable in politicians and the relationship between personality traits and political ambition (fulfillment) at the different steps of the selection process. While contributing to all aspects of the Vidi project, your key responsibility will be the panel study on local politicians tapping into personality traits, political ambition and ambition fulfilment. Designing and running this panel study will offer you the opportunity to put your unique stamp on this project. Additionally, you will contribute to a project led by the postdoc and PI, involving the collection of survey data on self-reported personality traits of politicians and coding their personality traits at a distance with a team of student coders. We will use this data to train an algorithm that can extract personality traits from inaugural speeches by politicians. Since this is a cross-national project, you will frequently be cooperating with researchers from other institutions.

Duties of a PhD student

• Analysing quantitative data on personality traits valued by citizens in politicians.
• Designing and conducting a quantitative panel study on the ambition and success of local politicians
• Contributing to data collection throughout all stages of the project, e.g., surveying national MPs online and in person, coding personality traits at a distance together with a team and collecting biographical background information on MPs
• Writing and submitting scientific articles to peer-reviewed journals, forming the basis of your dissertation
• Participating in research seminars where you discuss your work and build your professional network
• Visiting (international) conferences where you present your work
• Completing a number of PhD courses to enhance your research skills
• Besides research tasks, you are expected to contribute to education by giving BA tutorials. Depending on the needs of the different programs that the department is involved in and your own capabilities, the (introductory) courses may be in political science, business administration or research methodology.

Requirements:

• A master’s degree in political science or a related discipline that makes you well positioned to carry out this project
• A research master’s degree and/or familiarity with political psychology is an asset
• Proficiency in quantitative methods and research design
• Programming skills (e.g., Stata, R, Python)
• Commitment to enhancing research skills through further education
• Excellent oral and written English skills, with a willingness to learn Dutch if necessary
• Enthusiastic about working in an interdisciplinary team
• Excellent communication and inter-personal skills to work effectively in a team, but also the skills to take initiative and to work independently
• Aspiration to pursue an academic career
• Willingness to relocate to the Netherlands, if applicable

Salary Benefits:

A challenging position in a socially engaged organisation. At VU Amsterdam, you contribute to education, research and service for a better world. And that is valuable. So in return for your efforts, we offer you:

• a salary of € 2.872,00 (PhD) and maximum € 3.670,00 (PhD) gross per month in the fourth year, for a full-time employment
• an employment contract of initially 1 year. If there is sufficient perspective, this will be extended to a total of 4 years.

We also offer you attractive fringe benefits and arrangements. Some examples:

• A full-time 38-hour working week comes with a holiday leave entitlement of 232 hours per year. If you choose to work 40 hours, you have 96 extra holiday leave hours on an annual basis. For part-timers, this is calculated pro rata.
• 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus
• solid pension scheme (ABP)
• contribution to commuting expenses
• optional model for designing a personalized benefits package

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