Postdoctoral Research Associate in Geoeconomic Policy Discourse and Justification Mechanisms

Publication and dissemination

• Lead the drafting of approximately two to three peer-reviewed articles from the component, and contribute as co-author to cross-component publications.
• Draft two to three policy briefs or public-facing essays translating findings for policy and general audiences.
• Contribute chapter drafts and analytical input to the project monograph.
• Present findings at academic conferences, project workshops and policy events.
• Contribute to digital dissemination, including short-form video explainers, the project Substack and the Panmure House podcast, working with the House’s digital media coordinator.

Integration and collaboration

• Contribute substantively to monthly full-team meetings and quarterly integration workshops, including preparation of the agreed integration deliverable for each workshop.
• Engage critically with the work of the other two components, attending colleagues’ presentations and providing constructive feedback outside one’s own primary expertise.
• Pursue co-authorship across components where intellectually appropriate.

Events and engagement

• Contribute to the intellectual design and delivery of the four project workshops (Edinburgh, Washington DC, Asia and London), including identification of participants, preparation of materials and drafting of proceedings summaries.
• Build and maintain academic, policy and practitioner networks relevant to the component.
• Contribute to the wider intellectual life of Panmure House through seminars and public events.

Geoeconomic Policy Discourse and Justification Mechanisms

This post leads Component 1, which maps the rhetorical strategies and institutional mechanisms through which liberal democracies justify departures from market principles. The work analyses six cross-cutting justification mechanisms — “national security” expansionism, “economic security” as a new paradigm, “strategic autonomy” and resilience, technology competition as existential framing, the “dual-use” doctrine, and bipartisan coalition-building — across the United States and the European Union, with a parallel analysis of Chinese official discourse to guard against Western-centric assumptions.

Post-specific duties

• Design and apply a coding framework for the systematic analysis of policy documents from 2015 to 2025, including legislative records, EU economic security and strategic autonomy communications, executive statements, white papers and national security strategies.
• Conduct comparative and temporal analysis of justification patterns across the United States and the European Union, tracing continuity and change across political administrations.
• Conduct parallel analysis of Chinese official discourse, drawing on English translations and Mandarin-language sources, with native-speaker consultation or professional translation support where required.
• Plan and conduct approximately 25 to 30 elite interviews with policy entrepreneurs, congressional staff, executive branch officials and think-tank analysts.
• Take a lead role in the design and delivery of the Washington DC policy workshop in Month 18.

Essential Criteria

1. PhD (awarded or expected before the start date) in political science, international relations, IPE, public policy or a cognate discipline.
2. Demonstrable expertise in the political economy of trade, industrial policy, economic security or geoeconomics.
3. Proven competence in systematic qualitative text analysis, including designing and applying coding frameworks.
4. Working knowledge of United States and/or European Union economic policymaking institutions and legislative processes.
5. Experience of, or clear capacity for, elite interviewing.

Desirable Criteria

1. Reading competence in Mandarin sufficient to work with Chinese official documents.
2. Experience with qualitative analysis software (for example NVivo, ATLAS.ti or MAXQDA) or computational text analysis methods.
3. Existing networks among policy practitioners in Washington DC and/or Brussels.
4. Experience of writing for policy audiences (policy briefs, testimony, commentary).
5. Additional European language relevant to EU member-state policy documents.

How to Apply

Applications can be submitted up to midnight (UK time) on Sunday 27th September 2026.

We expect interviews to take place on 01 October 2026.

Please submit your CV via the Heriot-Watt on-line recruitment system.

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