Electoral Democracy in Danger?

We are inviting applications from doctoral students for a doctoral summer school on the topic “Electoral Democracy in Danger?”. The summer school will take the form of a five-day program, and consists of lectures by experts in the field as well as time for the presentation of students’ papers. The summer school will cover a broad range of topics, including lectures that assess the question whether electoral democracy is indeed in crisis, as well as lectures that focus on solutions such as democratic innovation.

• Monday 3 July: Affective polarization – Markus Wagner (University of Vienna)
• Tuesday 4 July: Electoral integrity – Sarah Birch (King’s College London)
• Wednesday 5 July: Democratic backsliding – Natasha Wunsch (Sciences Po Paris)
• Thursday 6 July: Democratic innovation – Hannah Werner (University of Zurich)
• Friday 7 July: The role of emotions and personality traits – Bert Bakker (University of Amsterdam)

Each day, a different lecturer will cover a specific topic during the morning (see detailed program). In the afternoon, students will present a research paper or dissertation project, and will receive feedback on their work from the professor teaching the morning course as well as from fellow students. Accepted students will be asked to circulate their projects or papers by 11 June 2023.

Doctoral students in political science who conduct research on democracy, challenges to democracy, elections, public opinion, political psychology or democratic innovations.

We are seeking for a mix of beginning and more advanced doctoral students. Beginning students can present their dissertation project, and the more advanced students can present a research paper. The maximum number of participants is limited to 15.

There are no registration fees for this summer school. In addition, participants will be covered travel to Paris as well as accommodation from 2-8 July in the Cité Internationale in Paris. Lectures and presentations will take place on the Sciences Po campus.

Provide your information, including an abstract of the paper you would like to present (max. 300 words)
using the following form: https://forms.gle/CdUnv61bYMY2tff97.

The deadline to apply is 24 February. Decisions on acceptance will be sent by mid-March. If you have any questions, you can contact Ruth Dassonneville (ruth.dassonneville@umontreal.ca) and Romain Lachat (romain.lachat@sciencespo.fr).