The Chair group offers three four-year scholarships to complete a PhD in Global and Local Governance. The PhD student will be enrolled in the Graduate School of Campus Fryslân (GSCF). PhD candidates can benefit from affiliations at University of Groningen Research Institutes such as the Groningen Centre for Law and Governance (https://www.rug.nl/research/groningen-centre-for-law-and-governance/), the Faculty of Economics and Business (https://www.rug.nl/research/som-ri/) and others as appropriate to the PhD Project.

Applications on the following topics are particularly welcomed:
- Globalization and Consensus Politics: For a substantial number of European countries, consensus politics, proportionality and oversized-majority decision making has been the norm throughout the 20th century. The question is to what extent globalization and European integration are presenting favorable or unfavorable conditions for the survival or demise of consensus politics. Empirical reality offers support for both arguments. To what extent does globalization have a different impact in the politics and governance of consensus democracies versus majoritarian polities? What are explanatory factors and what can be said of the future stability of politics and governance in consensus and majoritarian systems?
- The Future of Legitimate Governance: Good governance in democratic systems can be legitimized by a combination of factors: democratic representation (input), due process (throughput) and effective governance (output, outcome). For each type of legitimacy, present social developments pose both opportunities and threats. What are they and how are they playing out in the compound level of government legitimacy in different systems and at different levels of government? To what extent can a deficit on one factor be compensated by a surplus on another factor? What does this teach us for the chances of longer term good governance?
- The Political Economy of Health Care Systems: Public spending on health care has been an ever-growing segment of government budgets. Explanatory factors include an ageing population and advancing medical technology. Predictions are that in the foreseeable future, half of all public spending will be on health care. According to many, the growth of spending is unsustainable, and is happening at the expense of spending in other sectors, mainly the classical government tasks such as safety and security, infrastructure and to some extent education. Various important questions need to be addressed: How exactly did spending on health care develop over the past decades, how does this compare to developments in comparable other countries and what explains greater or smaller growth numbers? To what extent does the increase in health spending pose imbalances in the overall public spending and to what extent does this disrupt basic government tasks as mentioned above? What are effective ways to curb the growth of public spending and what will be the political, ethical, societal and economic implications of such measures?

The candidate should have the following qualifications:
- master’s degree in a relevant academic field
- demonstrable affinity with qualitative and quantitative research methods. Research experience is an asset
- highly developed conceptual capacity and analytical skills
- very good record of undergraduate and graduate studies
- very good command of spoken and written English. Dutch proficiency is an asset
- very good individual and collaborative working skills, including the ability to plan, organize and monitor work
- strong motivation to complete a PhD dissertation in four years.

Fixed-term contract: 48 months.

The successful candidate will be part of the University of Groningen’s PhD Scholarship Programme. After nine months, and thereafter annually, the progress will be evaluated. At these evaluations, it will be considered whether the results are sufficient for a successful and timely defense of the PhD thesis. As part of the programme, the PhD student will take part in the Career Perspectives Series, which provides a thorough preparation on the career after the PhD, inside or outside academia.
During the course of the doctorate, the student will develop research and teaching competencies as well as leadership skills. For this, the PhD students will receive a tailor-made programme from the GSCF.
General information about the University of Groningen’s PhD Scholarship Programme can be found at: www.rug.nl/education/phd-programmes/phd-scholarship-programme.

Campus Fryslan

Since its foundation in 1614, the University of Groningen has enjoyed an international reputation as a dynamic and innovative university of higher education offering high-quality teaching and research. Balanced study and career paths in a wide variety of disciplines encourage the 30,000 students and researchers to develop their own individual talents. Belonging to the best research universities in Europe and joining forces with prestigious partner universities and networks, the University of Groningen is an international place of knowledge.

Campus Fryslân is the University’s newest Faculty, located in Leeuwarden, the capital of Fryslân. The Faculty focuses on the interdisciplinary study of academic questions connected with the societal and economic themes relevant for the region. Among these themes is one of the pressing issues of our time: How to keep politics and governance at the various territorial levels legitimate and effective in times of social, electoral, technological, and geopolitical turbulence?

Within Campus Fryslân, the Chair in Global and Local Governance is dedicated to research and teaching on politics and governance. Increasing globalization has gone hand in hand with greater political fragmentation, new political cleavages, and declining levels of trust and recognition in the overall governance system. At the same time, societal expectations towards the state have gone up, while there is simultaneously a call for a retreat of the state in various policy sectors. The effects of this are felt at the local, regional, national and even European level. The Chair group contributes to knowledge development and dissemination in close collaboration with societal groups and public institutions at the local, regional and national level.