Research Assistant

The School of Politics & International Relations at the University of Nottingham is seeking a Research Associate to provide research and logistical support for a Leverhulme Trust funded research project. The PI for this project is Associate Professor Dr William Daniel and this role will be reporting directly to him.

Queering the Commons: Overcoming polarisation with identity-based connections is a new research project that explores identity-based affinity groups and asks whether they might be useful to reduce polarisation among political elites. Many legislatures permit affinity groups outside of committees to allow like-minded politicians to connect on areas of mutual interest, whether geographic, policy, or leisure. Using the case of four such prominent LGBTQ+groups in the UK House of Commons, Scottish Parliament, French National Assembly, and European Parliament, the project explores how connections made between groupmembers affect cross-party interactions in more formalisedparliamentary settings. The project takes inspiration from scholarship on ethnic and gender identity’s effects on political behaviour that has been less explored for sexuality. It argues that identities that divide us in one setting might bind us in another.

The successful candidate will:

• Have excellent oral and written communication skills, including the ability to communicate with clarity on complex information.
• Have strong knowledge of the research area, methods and techniques in the broad field of political science and, more specifically, in relation to the study of identity politics (i.e., race and ethnicity, gender, and/or sexuality)and/or legislative politics.
• Have the analytical ability to facilitate conceptual thinking, innovation and creativity.
• Have the ability to build relationships and collaborate with others, internally and externally.
• Have excellent organisational and project management skills, including a proven ability to prioritise work tasks, manage own time, and multi-task.
• Have an ability to work independently and take initiative, yet also work flexibly and supportively as part of a team..

It would be an advantage for candidates to have:

• Previous experience with web scraping techniques and/or advanced quantitative methods training in STATA or R.
• Ability to work across multi-lingual websites, especially in French.

We welcome applications from people in all diversity groups for this post, and we hope for a start date in February 2025.

Informal enquiries may be addressed to Dr. Will Daniel william.daniel@nottingham.ac.uk. Please note that applications sent directly to this email address will not be accepted.

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