Three Ph.D. positions in crisis management

Three Ph.D. positions in crisis management

About the Positions

The Institute of Political Science at Leiden University is looking to hire three Ph.D. students (Aio’s). The positions are part of the NWO-funded Gravitation (Zwaartekracht) program Adapt! This ten-year program will investigate how societies can navigate large-scale crises and disasters in an effective and legitimate manner, without undermining key societal values and democratic processes. The three positions are part of Work Package 3 (Strategic governance capacity). A brief description of the three projects is described below.

Project 1: Towards robust crisis detection and response mechanisms

This PhD project seeks to uncover success factors. The PhD student will study how organizations create systemic cultures of alertness that help to detect signals of emerging threats. The project will build on the theory of high reliability organisations (HROs). This project will explore whether HRO principles help to detect crises in a timely way. It will focus on the recognition and handling of so-called anomalous events. It will study HROs that routinely deal with the challenge of threat recognition in the three threat domains (e.g., public order disturbances, pandemics, and extreme weather).

Project 2: Towards high-performing crisis response networks

When government actors initiate a crisis response, it is important to identify problems, formulate solutions, and ensure their implementation in a timely and acceptable fashion. The Covid-19 crisis demonstrated just how challenging this task can be. The crisis literature suggests that four types of activities are key to effective problem-solving in times of crisis:

• Information management: governments need to collect, select, and process relevant information that sheds light on the causes and consequences of crisis-induced problems and the possible solutions that might be tried.
• Critical decision-making: governments need to identify and prioritise solutions that will limit the impact of the crisis.
• Collaborative management: governments must implement their solutions, and they cannot do this alone. They must work with other government organisations (including foreign and international organisations). They must align their knowledge, priorities, and resources with those of community and private actors to co-produce an integrated approach to arrive at coherent responses.
• Crisis communication: governments will find it hard to produce an effective and legitimate response without the help of the population. They will need to inform, engage, and persuade citizens. In addition, it is important to inform all the members of the response network. The challenge is to offer a convincing narrative in the face of many competing counter-narratives.

This project investigates the success and failure factors in the fulfilment of these four tasks in a detailed comparison of governmental responses to the same type of crisis (for instance, the Covid-19 pandemic in the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden).

Project 3: Ethics of crisis leadership

Crisis leaders must often choose between policy options that embody conflicting values. These moral dilemmas are particularly likely to occur in high-stakes situations with a necessity to act under conditions of deep uncertainty. In the context of the Covid-19 crisis, for instance, leaders had to weigh the importance of health protection against the freedom of movement.

This project will study how crisis leaders may develop and employ an ethical approach to decision-making in times of crisis. It will employ a case-study approach, investigating the decision-making processes in a small set of well-documented crises (for example, the Cuba Missile Crisis). It will study how crisis leaders handle ethical concerns raised by politicians and journalists. Moreover, it will study how perceptions of ethical decisions affect the perceived legitimacy of governmental crisis management performance.

What you will do

• You will do research that will result in a Ph.D. and will contribute to the larger aims of the Adapt program.

What we are looking for

• You have a (Research) Master's degree in political science, public administration, crisis management, philosophy or another related field of studies
• You like to do interdisciplinary research, both in terms of methodology and content
• You want to collaborate with other researchers in the Adapt! programme
• You have a demonstrated affinity with doing research
• You speak and write fluently in English, knowledge of Dutch is a plus

Where you will work

The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences consists of five institutes: Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Political Science, and Psychology. The faculty has approximately 7000 students and 1000 staff members. Within the institutes, not only education is provided but also groundbreaking research is conducted that pushes the boundaries of our understanding of human behaviour and societal structures. What makes our faculty unique is the diversity of research topics, the various styles of teaching, and the way professional support is organized; this provides you with the opportunity to explore and develop your interests and expertise.

Institute of Political Science

The Institute of Political Science has a strong research tradition in various areas of comparative, Dutch and international politics, as well as political theory. The Institute has around 85 academic staff, including many non-Dutch scholars, and houses a number of editorships of international refereed journals and book series. Members of the institute are also involved in a number of the university’s multi-disciplinary research centres, including the Europe Hub, Central and East European Studies, International Relations, Parties and Representation, Political Philosophy, Centrum voor Nederlandse Politiek en Bestuur and ReCNTR. The Institute is based in Leiden and in The Hague, where a large part of the teaching is done.

The Institute offers a range of programmes at the Bachelor and Master levels and also trains PhD students in political science. The BSc programmes include general Political Science (in Dutch & English, in Leiden), International Politics (in Dutch & English, in Leiden), and International Relations and Organisations (in English, in The Hague). The one-year MSc programme (taught mostly in English) includes five specialisations in Leiden and one in The Hague.

What we offer

Our goal is to work together to create a transparent and inclusive work environment in which everyone feels welcome and appreciated. Our organisation is always evolving and we need your ideas for improvement and innovation to take us further. We want to devote attention to your personal development.

You can expect an enjoyable job within the socially relevant world of education and research. The University's challenging and international work environment is located just steps away from Leiden’s lively city centre or the bustling city centre of The Hague. We also want to work with you to devote attention to your health and vitality, for example with the fun activities we organise through Healthy University.

We also offer:

• An employment contract for (38 hours per week) as a PhD candidate, initially for a period of 1 year, with the possibility of extension for 3 years after a positive evaluation. This contract falls under the CLA of Dutch Universities;
• A salary of a minimum of € 2901,00 and a maximum of € 3707,00 gross per month, based on a full-time appointment (38 hours) (scale P);
• A holiday allowance (8%), an end-of-year bonus (8,3%), and an attractive pension scheme at ABP;
• Flexible working hours: as a standard, you are entitled to a minimum of 29 leave days on the basis of a full-time working week of 38 hours; you can also save for extra leave, for example by working 40 hours a week, and in this way accrue an extra 96 leave hours, or exchange 96 leave hours for a 36-hour week.
• Lots of options when it comes to secondary employment conditions; we can, for example, discuss options for a sabbatical or paid parental leave. Within our terms of employment individual choices model, you can exchange leave days and/or salary for benefits such as an advantageous sports subscription or bicycle scheme, and we also offer child-care options;
• If your work allows it, hybrid working is possible within the Netherlands;
• A home-working allowance (day and internet allowance) and attention for good workplaces. The University will also provide you with a laptop and a mobile telephone (if applicable for the position).

What we find important

Promoting an inclusive community is central to Leiden University’s values and vision. Leiden University aims to be an inclusive community in which all students and staff members feel valued and respected, and are able to develop to their full potential. Diversity in experiences and perspectives enriches our teaching and strengthens our research. High-quality education and research means inclusive education and research.

Contact

If you would like more information about what the job entails, please contact prof. dr. Arjen Boin (project leader) at boin@fsw.leidenuniv.nl.