Project

After 40 years of Communist repression, in the early 1990’s Cezchoslovakia underwent a relatively peaceful transition to democracy. During the Communist reign tens of thousands of individuals were persecuted and harassed by the regime and its security forces. Some actively collaborated in the repression while millions of others went along and tacitly supported or tolerated the regime. Following the 1989 “Velvet Revolution”, various transitional justice measures, including (limited) prosecutions, large scale lustrations or clarity laws, were adopted to deal with the Communist past. The legacies of the repression and of the various transitional justice measures remain largely unknown. In this project you will explore individual- and community-level intergenerational transmission of legacies of repression and what role transitional justice mechanism play in such transmission.

The project will be part of a larger interdisciplinary research, funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), exploring how legacies of mass violence transfer across generations, and what role transitional justice mechanisms, such as criminal trials and lustrations/vetting, play in such intergenerational transmission. Using mixed methods analysis (surveys, interviews, focus groups) this interdisciplinary project focuses on two case studies of countries, which both experienced mass violence and implemented various transitional justice mechanisms to deal with the violent past: Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Czech Republic. 

Phd Researcher on the Czech Republic

In order to explore long-term consequence of represenion and the ways it was dealt within the Czech Republic, we are looking for a a highly motivated and talented PhD researcher who will join our team. The candidate should have a (almost) finished (Research) Master degree in any of the following: (International) Criminology, Conflict Studies, Transitional Justice, (International) Law, Psychology, Sociology or another field of Social Science. As you will be interacting with  a large variety of individuals, strong communicative skills and the ability to connect with different target groups are important for this project. Moreover, considering the multidisciplinary nature of the project, you need to be open, curious and determined in pursuing different fields of research, have a proven interest in studying mass violence and/or transitional justice, and an experience, or openness to learn, qualitative and quantitative empirical methods, such as interviews, focus groups, and surveys.  Finally, because of the international character of the project and the nature of the envisaged fieldwork, a candidate should not only speak and write fluent English, but also be fluent in Czech. 

The candidate will cooperate with the rest of the team and develop an original survey to gauge legacies of mass violence, conduct interviews among Czech families and focus groups in various communities. They will present their findings at academic conferences and in international peer reviewed journals.

• (Research) Master degree in (International) Criminology, Conflict Studies, Transitional Justice, (International) Law, Psychology, Sociology or another field of Social Science  
• Have a proven interest in studying mass violence and/or transitional justice
• Have experience with (or proven knowledge of) qualitative and quantitative research methods 
• Have an active interest in conducting scientific research, illustrated, for instance, by previously published papers or excellent results for papers written during the master phase (e.g. the master thesis)
• Have an excellent command of both English and Czech (both speaking, reading and writing)
• More generally, we are looking for an enthusiastic young researcher with strong analytical and communication skills, who can work independently, and who is open and curious.

You will be appointed at NSCR. You will first receive a contract for the period of one year. If you perform well it will be extended for three extra years. The starting salary for the first year is currently € 2539,- gross a month and will be up to a maximum of € 3318,- gross per month. 

You will also receive an end-of-year bonus of 8.33% and a holiday allowance of 8%. Click here for more information about our employment conditions.

NSCR is a leading research institute, based in Amsterdam, which is dedicated to fundamental scientific research in the field of crime and law enforcement. It is part of the institutes organization (NWO-I), which belongs to the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). NSCR is a lively (inter)national research community where high-quality, socially relevant research is conducted in a stimulating multidisciplinary environment.

The proposed project will be embedded in the NSCR’s Research Group IV that focuses on how society responds to crime and as such the project will contribute to research on societal reconstruction after mass violence. Members of this Research Group meet on a regular basis and the PhD researcher, together with the other members of the team, will be actively engaged within this group.