Zeppelin Universität (ZU) in Friedrichshafen on the Lake of Constance is a state-recognized, private university with BA, MA and doctoral programs in the fields of business, culture and politics. It is committed to interdisciplinarity, internationality and individuality in research and teaching.

We are currently looking to fill the following part-time position (65%), for three years at the Chair of European Politics (Prof. Dr. Steffen Hurka) by 1 October 2026:

Doctoral Researcher (m/f/x) in Political Science (65%) I ERC Project DEMOLAW

The doctoral researcher will be part of the project DEMOLAW (The design, creation and survival of democratic laws), funded by the European Research Council (ERC). DEMOLAW analyses legislative texts in three different political systems (US, UK, EU) with computational methods to answer three major research questions: (1) Which conceptual dimensions capture the design of a law and how can we exploit textual properties of law texts to measure these dimensions empirically? (2) Why does the design of democratic legislation vary across laws, policy domains and political systems? (3) How can we explain why some laws are entirely stable over time, while others are constantly adjusted and sometimes transformed fundamentally?

The project makes three major contributions. First, it provides a novel conceptual perspective on the design of democratic laws by focusing on two analytical dimensions that are central to any piece of legislation: versatility and precision. This innovative approach allows us to measure and compare the substance of legislative output across and within policy domains, political systems and over time. Second, the project will develop and test an integrated theoretical framework on both the creation and the survival of democratic legislation. Finally, the project’s methodological approach will pave the way for a computational analysis of legislative content and will push the boundaries of how we study democratic decision-making.