Doctoral Program Democracy Studies
The NCCR Democracy organizes a four-year Ph.D. program in Democracy Studies. It is open to Ph.D. students in political science, media and communication science and philosophy who are interested in theoretical and/or empirical issues of democracy research.
The Doctoral Program (DP) Democracy Studies aims at academic excellence in terms of early scientific independence, international visibility and intellectual networking. It builds upon solid conceptual grounds and institutional structures established by the NCCR Democracy over almost eight years in order to enable its participants to obtain Ph.D. degrees of such a quality that they can place themselves at the forefront of their discipline(s).
The DP Democracy Studies provides an intensive, multi-disciplinary doctoral training in theoretical and empirical democracy research. It combines, in a form of structured freedom, the advantages of standardized and apprenticeship models. This format has been applied successfully in the past and positively evaluated by both the Swiss National Science Foundation and (former) program participants.
The curriculum of the DP Democracy Studies offers doctoral students the opportunity to expand their general knowledge of democracy research and their specific knowledge about, for instance, the impact of globalization, democratization or mediatization on politics. It promotes their individual research, method and transferrable skills that are considered crucial for becoming fully professionalized academics.
Participating doctoral students are integrated into a(n) (inter-)national network of experts in the field of democracy research. This can open up new perspectives with regards to obtaining post-doc or assistant professor positions soon after having completed the Ph.D.
The Doctoral Program Democracy Studies has been established by the NCCR Democracy in 2006 as a training center in Switzerland for junior scholars in democracy research. In 2013, the program has been re-structured and institutionalized at the University of Zurich. It is now possible to register for the third edition of the program starting in October 2013, see admission.
