Job description
What citizens believe to be true and whether they trust science increasingly depend on where they stand on the political spectrum. As a result, political opponents are often divided not only in their attitudes, but also in their beliefs about reality. Leftist and rightist voters, for instance, have different perceptions of the causes of climate change, the magnitude of income inequality, and the number of immigrants in their country. Does this pique your interest? If so, this position may be for you!
We are recruiting a team that will examine how this 'factual belief polarization' influences public opinion and, for example, whether it contributes to broader polarisation. Moreover, we will examine the increasing politicisation of trust in science, focusing on public perceptions of bias and how citizens view different types of policy advocacy by scientists. Within this broader team, two subprojects will be carried out by postdoctoral researchers, who will conduct surveys and experiments and author or co-author a number of manuscripts for publication in international scientific journals. You will also participate in academic conferences.
Project 1: Better survey measures for factual beliefs
There is currently a lack of well-validated survey measures for factual beliefs. For fundamental questions such as whether people overestimate the magnitude of the immigrant population, our current knowledge relies on insufficiently validated items. Existing survey items have, for example, asked respondents about percentages, ratios, visual representations, or exemplars. Supervised by Dr Roderik Rekker, you will apply measurement models and survey experiments to examine whether some questions or response formats are easier to understand for survey respondents than others, and how such measurement decisions affect substantive conclusions about factual belief polarisation. This project will yield better validated survey items and articles in international peer-reviewed journals.
Project 2: The politicisation of trust in science, bias perceptions, and advocacy by scientists
Public trust in science is becoming increasingly politicised. Conservative and far-right voters, in particular, often express lower levels of trust in science. One possible reason for this politicisation is that citizens do not always accept science as a politically neutral epistemic authority. For example, sociologists are often seen as ‘left-leaning’, while economists are perceived as ‘right-leaning’. These perceptions of political bias are associated with distrust in the respective scientific fields. Together with Dr Roderik Rekker, Dr Erika van Elsas, and Dr Christel van Eck, you will use surveys and experiments to investigate where these perceptions originate and what their consequences are. In particular, the project will examine how citizens view different forms of policy advocacy by scientists, and if and when advocacy can contribute to perceptions of bias and public distrust.
The postdoctoral positions involve 20% teaching duties.
Department
The Department of Political Science examines the complexity and interconnectedness of contemporary politics with a focus on legitimacy and institutional change. The department consists of two chair groups: Empirical Political Science and International Relations. Jointly, they offer Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes in Political Science.
You will be based within the chair group of Empirical Political Science. This chair group has particular strengths in comparative politics, political theory, as well as quantitative and qualitative methodology. Major research topics include populism, electoral behaviour, public opinion, and labour movements, as well as the moral legitimacy of institutions and policies. Many of its individual members contribute to more than one of these subjects, and are active in interdisciplinary Hotspots and research collaborations across the Nijmegen School of Management and beyond.