
Marie Curie PhD Fellowship
About the role
The International Dimensions and Effects of Populism (IDEoPOP)
The Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies at the University of Bath is seeking to appoint two fully funded PhD Fellowships to join European Union’s Horizon Europe Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions-Doctoral Networks/UKRI for a duration of 36 months.
PhD1: Regional and international populist orders
This project analyses how populists conceive of regional and international orders. This project will provide an understanding about whether populist governments and leaders have an overall unitary conception of international order or whether this conception is segmented and depends on geopolitical factors such as belonging to specific regional orders, notions of regions and regionness as type of subsystem and order. In order to capture the expected diversity of understandings of international orders out there, the study cases will have a cross-regional dimensions, like for example, India, Turkey, Brazil and the US as well as other populist experiences. In this way, this project will also contribute to the further understanding of the reciprocal nexus of regions and international orders.
PhD2: Populist branding in international politics
This project analyses how populist leaders brand themselves in international politics. This project will bring together different theoretical elements of comparative electoral politics such as electoral branding of candidates, and electoral marketing, and foreign policy elements such as roles and identity aspects of the state to analyze how populist leaders when acting internationally also promote a type of self-brand which is used for further domestic and international identification. This project will also unveil the type of relationships that populist leaders seek to advance and locate internationally. Within this relational dimension the project also analyses whether this brand is welcomed and accepted by domestic actors and by international peers and institutions, or whether the brand as performed is challenged and adjusted as being contested. A priority for Latin American case studies (at least to a certain extent) will be given, like for example, the case of J.Milei in Argentina, J.Bolsonaro in Brazil, N.Bukele in Salvador, and AMLO in Mexico.