Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) in Political Science

The Centre for International Studies (CERI) at Sciences Po, Paris, seeks an Assistant Professor working on the political and ecological issues of the oceans, seas and coasts. The environmental issues specific to these areas are at the heart of many situations of violence and conflict, linked to the predation of resources and their entry into trade circuits, which raises both economic and political issues. Possible research topics include, but are not limited to, practices conceptualised as ‘blue grabbing’ to indicate the dispossession of local communities of resources linked to the sea, the struggles and conflicts between protection, conservation, exploitation and grabbing of maritime and coastal spaces, the politicisation and judicialization of pollution and contamination issues, as well as the claims and practices of ‘blue justice’, involving a variety of actors: local communities, multinationals, NGOs, national and international public actors and institutions, as well as groups involved in piracy practices.
In methodological terms, the research programme is expected to be based on an expertise in one or more fields (particularly in the global South) as a starting point for comparative reflection.
In terms of discipline, the profile is open-ended: in addition to the sub-disciplines of political science (particularly comparative politics and international relations), other social science disciplines inclined to dialogue with political science are welcome, such as anthropology, geography, sociology and history. An interest in interdisciplinary openness towards maritime environmental science disciplines will be considered an asset.

The position will be based at Sciences Po’s Center for International Studies (CERI).

Sciences Po is ranked 1st in the EU and 2nd in the world in the QS World University Ranking by subject 2024 for Politics and International Relations.

Deadline: February 15, 2025

Founded at Sciences Po in 1952, the CERI is today France’s leading research center dedicated to the study of international/transnational relations and regional area studies. The Center is directed by Stéphanie Balme and has enjoyed the status of joint research entity (UMR 7050) under the combined auspices of Sciences Po and the CNRS, since 2002.

The CERI currently comprises 60 permanent faculty members. It also hosts nearly 80 doctoral students in IR and area studies from the Sciences Po Doctoral School. The CERI’s research agenda is based on the conviction that the study of the globalized world must proceed through a two-pronged approach: area studies and international and transnational relations.

The Center brings together scholars from several social science disciplines, among which political science is the best represented, along with sociology, anthropology, history and economics. A dozen or so of the Center’s scholars are specialists of international relations in the strict sense. In area studies, the Center is particularly strong in North Africa and the Middle East, Latin America, the Far East, South Asia, West Africa and the African Great Lakes Region. The Center’s approach to area studies emphasizes fieldwork, empirical and comparative approaches, and the study of rare languages.

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