PhD in Political Science

We invite submissions of PhD prospectuses for inclusion in on automated decision-making and contracting a larger research project on automated decision-making and contracting. The project examines the implications of automation for market design, private ordering and contract law, as well as the opportunities and risks arising from automating different stages of contracts and processes. Algorithmic contracts, automated negotiation systems, AI-assisted drafting tools, and decentralised enforcement mechanisms are transforming how agreements are created, executed, and enforced. While much current scholarship focuses on doctrinal adaptation or technological feasibility, this project reframes the debate from a law-and-economics perspective. Rather than treating automation merely as a technical tool or regulatory challenge, we analyse it as a mechanism of market creation and institutional transformation, exploring how new modes of formation and enforcement reshape incentives, reduce transaction costs, and alter structures of trust.

Prospective PhD projects should engage with core questions concerning efficiency, governance choice, market creation, and (private law) values. Among others, we seek research examining in which scenarios, across the decision-making process, algorithmic solutions are preferable to traditional governance mechanisms, when automation reduces transaction costs or agency problems, and when it instead produces rigidity, strategic behaviour, or systemic risk, particularly in high-trust and no-trust environments. We also invite inquiry into the kinds of markets that algorithmic trust mechanisms help to create or expand, including how code-based enforcement, decentralised verification, or AI-driven monitoring may substitute for relational or institutional trust and enable previously infeasible exchanges. Proposals ought also to consider how automation affects values beyond welfare—such as autonomy, fairness, and justice—including questions of meaningful consent, distributive effects of automated enforcement, and the compatibility of algorithmic governance with justice.

Submissions might situate their inquiry within a law & economics framework while remaining open to interdisciplinary engagement with computer science, behavioural economics, philosophy, or institutional economics. We particularly welcome projects that develop conceptual models, compare traditional and no-trust contracting settings, explore hybrid models combining algorithmic and institutional governance, investigate empirical or experimental evidence, or analyse tensions between efficiency and non-welfare values.

Illustrative topics include algorithmic negotiation and bargaining power asymmetries, algorithmic contracts and interpretive flexibility, the economics of remedies under automation, automated enforcement and decentralised dispute resolution, AI-assisted drafting and contractual standardisation, platform governance as algorithmic contract design, behavioural responses to automated enforcement, and the role of algorithmic contracts in emerging digital or decentralised markets.

Interested candidates should prepare a research proposal outlining the specific research project they would pursue under this broader topic.

Main supervisor: Dr Helen Eenmaa, Associate Professor of Governance and Legal Policy, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, ETIS profile, [email protected]

We invite applications for PhD projects examining party-based opposition to European integration and illiberal politics in Europe at both national and supranational levels. Proposed projects should ideally analyze how Eurosceptic politics and illiberal tendencies shape the speed, direction, and intensity of European integration, as well as their underlying nature and dynamics. Projects may also consider how alternative, illiberally oriented models or regional cooperation, which explicitly or implicitly challenge European integration, challenge the EU’s liberal-democratic foundations and normative appeal.

Since the early 2000s, following the EU’s most ambitious enlargement and the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in 2005, opposition to European integration and illiberalism have increasingly shifted from the political fringes to the mainstream, reshaping political discourse within both the EU and its member states. Successive crises have further tested the resilience of European liberal democracies and heightened the politicization of European integration. This process has often been instrumentalized by both domestic actors and illiberal external powers seeking to undermine European unity, erode citizens’ trust in democratic institutions, and promote competing governance models.

Proposals may focus on the political and institutional dynamics shaping illiberal and Eurosceptic politics, the role of key actors, and the developmental trajectories of affected political systems. Particular attention may be paid to the interaction between domestic party competition and exogenous factors driving illiberalism and Euroscepticism, including geopolitical pressures, shifts in transatlantic relations, Russia’s destabilizing actions in the context of its full-scale war against Ukraine, and the growing use of disinformation and hybrid warfare to undermine European cohesion. Relevant conceptual keywords include Euroscepticism, illiberalism, de-Europeanization, crisis politics, foreign interference, and hybrid threats.

While the thematic focus of proposals remains open, priority will be given to comparative studies at national or supranational levels. We welcome qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method research designs. Interested candidates should prepare a research proposal outlining the specific research project they would pursue under this broader topic.

Main supervisor: Dr Stefano Braghiroli, Associate Professor of European Studies, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, ETIS profile, [email protected]

Multi-stakeholder governance refers to multiorganizational arrangements that involve market, civil society and state actors who collaborate with the aim of tackling complex, often boundary-spanning, problems that no single actor can resolve alone.

Governance scholars have been preoccupied with questions pertaining to the performance and effective management of governance networks while the issues of power, politics, and democracy in these multi-stakeholder action systems have received much less attention. Extant literature has only started to grapple with the questions of how to explore the democratic anchorage of governance networks (Torfing et al 2012) and how to assess their legitimacy (Doberstein and Millar 2014). Some scholars have questioned the linear models of accountability for investigating multy-party action systems that defy hierarchical relations (Cech 2021; Klijn and Koppenjan 2016; O’Connell 2006; Yang 2011). Others have started to address the politics of collaborative governance (Agranoff and Kolpakov 2023; Purdy 2012). Instead of embracing them as vehicles for democratic inclusion, critics of governance networks have pointed out their propensity towards closure, mistrust among the members, and a tendency to reproduce inequalities (Davies 2011).

With this background in mind, applicants are invited to develop proposals for PhD projects that engage in a study of the following topics:

• Projects that explore the democratic legitimacy of multi-stakeholder governance.
• Projects that explore public accountability in governance systems with distributed agency such as MLG-networks.
• Projects that seek to develop and apply alternatives to the hierarchical principal-agent models for studying democratic accountability in shared-power settings.
• Projects that investigate the consequences of technology-facilitated governance systems (such as the application of AI for policy implementation) on the transformation of the public domain, and particularly the implications for authority relationships, channels of public control, and the overall legitimacy of multi-centered governing.
• Projects that aim to contribute to the limited understanding of the tension between decentered politics of (ICT-based) co-production and the monocentric vision of democracy as well as offer strategies for the pursuit of democracy in increasingly polycentric sites of governance decoupled from the parliamentary arena.

Interested candidates should prepare a research proposal outlining the specific research project they would pursue under this broader topic.

Main supervisor: Dr Kristina Muhhina, Research Fellow in Public Policy, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, ETIS profile, [email protected]

We invite applications for PhD projects exploring the interplay between digital democracy and digital governance, with a focus on identifying strategies and tools that strengthen good governance in democratic systems. Proposed projects should critically examine how digital technologies are reshaping the frameworks of participation, decision-making, accountability, and transparency in democracies.

Research may address questions such as: How do digital platforms influence citizen engagement and political representation? What role do digital innovations play in combating corruption and enhancing institutional trust? What risks and opportunities do digital transformations pose to the resilience of democratic governance?

Potential research topics include, but are not limited to, the role of artificial intelligence and big data in governance, the ethical and regulatory challenges of digital policymaking, and the impact of digital platforms on electoral processes and political mobilisation. Applicants may also consider comparative studies that analyse digital governance practices across national or regional contexts or evaluate the effectiveness of digital tools in promoting inclusive governance. Proposals incorporating interdisciplinary approaches from fields such as political science, sociology, and information technology are particularly encouraged. Both qualitative and mixed-methods research designs are welcome.

Preference will be given to proposals that engage with the implications of digital democracy and digital governance in Europe, including emerging democracies. Applicants are encouraged to submit a detailed research proposal outlining their research question, methodology, and the specific contribution their project aims to make to the field.

Main supervisor: Dr Dmytro Khutkyy, Research Fellow in Digital Governance, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, ETIS profile, [email protected]

This research section covers EU economic governance and European political economy. Over the recent decades, European financial, health, security, and competitiveness crises have prompted far-reaching changes in EU economic governance. EU institutions, most prominently, the European Commission, have rapidly expanded their role in shaping core policy domains of the economy, including fiscal and budgetary coordination, socio-economic governance, financial and capital markets regulation, and not least, climate/energy policy.

PhD projects in this section will examine the design, politics, and effects of this evolving EU economic governance, and how national governments, institutions and firms adopt or resist these changes. Building on recent theoretical and policy-making literature, the projects may focus on how EU policy priorities and funding change national development strategies, growth models and political coalitions.

This section particularly welcomes PhD proposals that align with the supervisor’s ongoing research projects, regarding Europe’s green transition and the political economy of EU funds. PhD researchers are encouraged to use a wide range of social science methodologies. Interested candidates should prepare a research proposal outlining the specific research project they would pursue under this broader topic.

Main supervisor: Dr Edgars Eihmanis, Research Fellow in Political Economy, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, ETIS profile, [email protected]

Affective polarization, i.e. mutual antipathy between political groups, has become one of the central features of contemporary politics. At very high levels, such animosity can have far-reaching ramifications: if political opponents are not perceived as legitimate rivals but as loathed enemies, elites and voters may be more willing to commit or tolerate democratic norm violations in order to defeat the “enemy”. Polarization can also “leak” from the political arena into social spheres, fueling avoidance and discrimination toward fellow citizens with differing political views.

Yet the extent to which affective polarization threatens democracy and societal cohesion remains contested, with some scholars arguing the risks are overstated. The picture is further complicated in studying multiparty systems, where distinct conflict dimensions may have different foundations and implications. Despite rapidly growing research in recent years, significant gaps remain – particularly regarding potential ways to reduce excessive political/partisan animosity outside of the (rather unique) United States context.

This call invites prospective researchers to shed light on various aspects of affective polarization, such as:

• The vertical consequences of affective polarization (i.e. effects on politics/democracy)
• The horizontal consequences of affective polarization (i.e. effects on society and interpersonal relations)
• The causes of affective polarization: Which conditions give rise to dangerously high levels of political hostility?
• Solutions: How could affective polarization be reduced – and should it be?

Interested candidates should prepare a research proposal outlining the specific research project they would pursue under this broader topic.

Main supervisor: Dr Andres Reiljan, Research Fellow in Political Behaviour, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, ETIS profile, [email protected]

Research project “Exploring Dynamics of "Frozen Conflicts" through Actor-based Interactions” (led by Professor Eiki Berg) is announcing a call for applications for a PhD position. The proposed PhD project should explore the role of “left-behind” minorities in the conflict dynamics between parent states and secessionist entities/de facto states.

In conflicts between de facto states and their parent states, the latter are motivated to employ counter-secessionist strategies as a matter of undermining de facto states’ agency in international affairs (Ker-Lindsay 2012; Griffiths and Muro 2020). In that, parent states may, and usually do, rely on their own “left behind” national minorities remaining in de facto states to add another dimension to their territorially based expectations. The situation resembles the triadic nexus model of Rogers Brubaker (1995), where de facto states embarking on state-building become the nationalising “states”, turning the members of the parent state ethnicities into a new national minority, and reimaging the parent state as an “external” national homeland.

An analysis of how these “left behind” national minorities view, project, and seek to position themselves within an existing frozen conflict may help illuminate the broader dynamics and trajectories of these conflicts. We are especially missing comparative accounts that would aim at tentative generalizations based on the study of “left behind” minorities across a variety of cases, both contemporary and past. Possible cases that could be included in the project are Moldovans in Transnistria, Georgians in Abkhazia, and Serbs in Kosovo.

Interested candidates should prepare a research proposal outlining the specific research project they would pursue under this broader topic.

Main supervisor: Prof Eiki Berg, Professor of International Relations Theory, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, ETIS profile, [email protected]

We invite submissions of PhD prospectuses for inclusion in on automated decision-making and contracting a larger research project on automated decision-making and contracting. The project examines the implications of automation for market design, private ordering and contract law, as well as the opportunities and risks arising from automating different stages of contracts and processes. Algorithmic contracts, automated negotiation systems, AI-assisted drafting tools, and decentralised enforcement mechanisms are transforming how agreements are created, executed, and enforced. While much current scholarship focuses on doctrinal adaptation or technological feasibility, this project reframes the debate from a law-and-economics perspective. Rather than treating automation merely as a technical tool or regulatory challenge, we analyse it as a mechanism of market creation and institutional transformation, exploring how new modes of formation and enforcement reshape incentives, reduce transaction costs, and alter structures of trust.

Prospective PhD projects should engage with core questions concerning efficiency, governance choice, market creation, and (private law) values. Among others, we seek research examining in which scenarios, across the decision-making process, algorithmic solutions are preferable to traditional governance mechanisms, when automation reduces transaction costs or agency problems, and when it instead produces rigidity, strategic behaviour, or systemic risk, particularly in high-trust and no-trust environments. We also invite inquiry into the kinds of markets that algorithmic trust mechanisms help to create or expand, including how code-based enforcement, decentralised verification, or AI-driven monitoring may substitute for relational or institutional trust and enable previously infeasible exchanges. Proposals ought also to consider how automation affects values beyond welfare—such as autonomy, fairness, and justice—including questions of meaningful consent, distributive effects of automated enforcement, and the compatibility of algorithmic governance with justice.

Submissions might situate their inquiry within a law & economics framework while remaining open to interdisciplinary engagement with computer science, behavioural economics, philosophy, or institutional economics. We particularly welcome projects that develop conceptual models, compare traditional and no-trust contracting settings, explore hybrid models combining algorithmic and institutional governance, investigate empirical or experimental evidence, or analyse tensions between efficiency and non-welfare values.

Illustrative topics include algorithmic negotiation and bargaining power asymmetries, algorithmic contracts and interpretive flexibility, the economics of remedies under automation, automated enforcement and decentralised dispute resolution, AI-assisted drafting and contractual standardisation, platform governance as algorithmic contract design, behavioural responses to automated enforcement, and the role of algorithmic contracts in emerging digital or decentralised markets.

Interested candidates should prepare a research proposal outlining the specific research project they would pursue under this broader topic.

Main supervisor: Dr Helen Eenmaa, Associate Professor of Governance and Legal Policy, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, ETIS profile, [email protected]

We invite applications for PhD research projects that advance knowledge on political behavior, elections and representation in Europe. We are particularly interested in projects examining electoral behavior, political parties, voter attitudes, political cleavages and polarization, and the dynamics of right-wing populism and extremism. Projects focusing on European Parliament elections, the role of the pro/anti-EU divide in party politics and voter behavior, and the evolving link between national and European political arenas, are also particularly welcome.

Across Europe, electoral competition increasingly reflects tensions that cut across traditional left–right divides. Cultural conflict, identity politics, and attitudes toward globalization, migration, and EU integration have become key structuring forces for party systems and voting behavior. At the same time, scholars are debating how stable these “new” divides are, how they interact with older socio-economic cleavages, and whether they signify lasting realignments or more contingent, context-dependent shifts. PhD projects under this call may engage with major research frontiers such as (but not limited to): the micro-foundations of polarization and democratic dissatisfaction; the conditions under which populist and extremist parties expand their electorates; the role of party strategies and issue entrepreneurship; the effects of media and information environments on vote choice and participation; and the ways in which institutional settings shape representation across levels of governance.

With regard to European Parliament elections, long-standing debates about “second-order elections” are being revisited in light of rising party system fragmentation, politicization of EU issues, and the growing salience of transnational crises. How do voters connect national performance evaluations to European-level choices? When do European issues become decisive, and for whom? European Parliament elections raise core questions about democratic representation in the EU: what patterns of representation do they actually generate, and to what extent do they provide the EP with a genuine electoral mandate – rather than a predominantly “second-order” signal filtered through national politics – for shaping the direction and pace of European integration? We welcome projects that probe these and related questions while also exploring broader linkages between national and European arenas: party competition across levels, coordination between national parties and European party families, and the translation of public opinion into EU-level representation.

Methodologically, proposals submitted to this call should be grounded in quantitative and comparative approaches. Suitable designs include (but are not limited to) statistical analysis of individual-level survey data, party-level datasets, electoral results, and contextual indicators, as well as multi-level and comparative cross-national models. Proposed projects could use data from major cross-national surveys, including (but by no means limited to) the European Election Studies (EES), Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, Eurobarometer, European Social Survey or comparative data on political parties (e.g. Chapel Hill expert survey, Manifesto Project Database). Projects should preferably be comparative, focusing on a subset of European countries or Europe-wide dynamics, and should articulate how the empirical strategy speaks to broader theoretical debates. This call for PhD proposals entails a possibility to conclude a joint degree agreement (cotutelle agreement) between the University of Tartu and the University of Amsterdam (conditional on all applicable requirements being met). If such an agreement is concluded, the PhD candidate would be jointly supervised by Prof Piret Ehin (Tartu) and Prof Wouter van der Brug (Amsterdam) and would spend part of the doctoral period at the University of Amsterdam.

Interested candidates should prepare a research proposal outlining the specific research project they would pursue under this broader topic.

Main supervisor: Prof Piret Ehin, Professor of Comparative Politics, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, ETIS profile, [email protected]

We invite applications from motivated PhD candidates for a research project examining the role of expert intelligentsia in late socialism, perestroika, and the 1989 revolutions in East-Central Europe, with a particular emphasis on the transnational circulation of ideas, concepts, and expert networks across the region. The PhD student will be involved in the research project “From Experts to Revolutionaries: The Role of Intelligentsia in Soviet Estonia and East-Central Europe during the Late Cold War” (led by Dr Juhan Saharov). The project deals with state-socialist experts and intellectuals in the political sphere during 1987–89, investigating how expert networks operated across state-socialist borders, how “expert languages” travelled and were adapted in different political contexts, and how these exchanges shaped political transformation from the 1960s to the late 1980s.

The project aims to integrate research on the Soviet republics (including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and others), Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia into a coherent framework. It seeks to examine how region-wide exchanges among economists, legal scholars, sociologists, futurologists, and other experts contributed to the radicalization and transformation of reformist thought and, ultimately, to the revolutions of 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

We expect the PhD candidate to focus on one of the above-mentioned countries while situating their case study within broader transnational dynamics. Particular attention should be paid to cross-border networks, knowledge transfers, and the circulation of reform discourses across East-Central Europe.

The successful candidate will collaborate closely with an international team of historians and political scientists and contribute to a vibrant and intellectually stimulating research environment.

We welcome applicants with a strong background in history, political science, or related disciplines, and with a demonstrated interest in late socialism, intellectual history, transnational networks, and the political transformations of 1989. Interested candidates should prepare a research proposal outlining the specific research project they would pursue under this broader topic.

Main supervisor: Dr Juhan Saharov, Research Fellow in History of Political Thought, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, ETIS profile, [email protected]

We invite applicants to propose PhD projects that engage in the study of the effects and the determinants of public sector institutional reforms in the EU’s Eastern neighborhood countries.

Good governance promotion and assistance to public sector institutional reforms is a growing part of the EU’s agenda. Governance reform has received particularly focused attention in the EU’s enlargement and neighborhood policy as well as in the European Consensus on Development that outlines democracy, good governance, the rule of law, and human rights as the EU’s objectives for its development policy. While the results of the reforms are underwhelming, the attention has recently turned to the need for more nuanced differentiation and tailoring of reform strategies. The question that many are grappling with is how to differentiate donor strategies given the opportunities and constraints stemming from the political economy and institutional configurations in distinct target environments? With this question in mind, applicants are invited to propose projects that would develop new knowledge about the EU’s promotion of good governance.

The candidates to the PhD program may explore how the EU modulates its strategies across different kinds of reform environments and assess the fit between the EU’s approaches and the types of implementation spaces it encounters in target countries. For investigating context-specific pathways to governance reform, the candidates should take a critical look at the political economy realities of various regime types and/or examine the nuances of the institutional configurations of distinct forms of political settlement that can be observed across the Eastern neighborhood countries. Applicants are encouraged to find innovative approaches to studying the interactions between the EU’s policy instrument mixes and the variety of authority structures impinging on domestic governance practices on the ground. For this, the projects may draw on combinations of lenses including political economy, new-institutionalism, non-democratic regime types, political settlement analysis, national administrative styles, and policy implementation styles among others. While all methodologies are welcome, qualitative approaches will be preferred.

To sum up, under this heading, applicants are invited to develop proposals for PhD projects that engage in a study of the following topics:

• Projects that adopt a policy analysis perspective to the European neighborhood studies.
• Projects that explore EU’s assistance to good governance and institutional reform through the lens of policy design and policy instruments.
• Projects that aim to investigate why certain institutional reforms succeed or fail in diverse institutional contexts of the Eastern neighborhood and identify the likely determinants of the observed results.
• Projects that aim to generate knowledge for matching various reform environments with distinct assistance strategies for evidence-based policymaking and implementation.

Interested candidates should prepare a research proposal outlining the specific research project they would pursue under this broader topic.

Main supervisor: Dr Kristina Muhhina, Research Fellow in Public Policy, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, ETIS profile, [email protected]

Recent developments in Eastern Europe, particularly since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, have intensified the entanglement between religion, nationalism, and political order. The war constitutes a critical juncture in which distinctions and interactions between the religious, the secular, and the sacred are renegotiated across domestic and international arenas.

Doctoral dissertation proposals within this theme are expected to examine how religion functions as a cultural and symbolic resource in the politics of nationalism under wartime conditions. Projects should examine processes through which secular entities—such as the nation, the state, or warfare—are sacralized, alongside the politicization of religious institutions and doctrines and the construction of narratives that legitimize or contest political authority. Particular attention should be given to how these dynamics inform sovereignty claims, security discourses, and the discursive production of symbolic boundaries between identity groups, including national, civilizational, and religious communities.

The theme encourages research that incorporates path-dependent perspectives, examining how historical legacies, confessional traditions, and earlier church–state configurations shape contemporary patterns of political mobilization. Projects may also explore the politicization and construction of national memory, including how present-day discourses reinterpret the past to sustain narratives of national mission, messianism, or civilizational belonging.

Proposals are encouraged to engage with constructivist approaches to identity and nationalism, securitization theory, and comparative politics perspectives on social cleavages, political polarization, and reconfiguration of authority structures and public moral order. Discourses of national exceptionalism and civilizational distinctiveness warrant extra attention as they intersect with international confrontation and domestic political realignment.

Relevant research topics include, but are not limited to:

• Religion as a cultural code in national identity formation
• Sacralization of the state, war, and political community
• Politicization of religious authority and doctrine
• Religion and the legitimation of violence and warfare
• Politics of memory and path-dependent church–state legacies
• Interaction between social cleavages, political polarization, and religious mobilization

Comparative projects are especially welcome, particularly those connecting cases such as the Baltic states, Ukraine, Russia, or other parts of Eastern Europe affected by the current war. Both qualitative and mixed-

method research designs are encouraged, including discourse analysis, longitudinal textual analysis, comparative case studies, and policy-oriented research.

Interested candidates should prepare a research proposal outlining the specific research project they would pursue under this broader topic. Applicants should clearly articulate their theoretical framework, case selection, methodological design, and expected contribution to the study of religion and political order in contemporary Eastern Europe.

Main supervisor: Dr Alar Kilp, Lecturer in Comparative Politics, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, ETIS profile, [email protected]

Recent years have seen intensifying concerns about multiple crises, including those of liberal democracy and the international order. The link between domestic and international order appears to have reasserted itself: democratic erosion within major powers destabilises international alliances, while global volatility further weakens democratic institutions. Yet should this development be understood as a resurgence of the nation-state, or does it instead reveal its structural fragility? And how might these dynamics look different when viewed from the perspective of “small,” “medium”, or “large” nations?

Projects under this heading should address the contemporary crises of democracy and/or international order from a theoretical, conceptual, or historical perspective. Particularly welcome are proposals that situate current developments within a longer intellectual history – for example, by revisiting historical debates on the nation-state, political economy, sovereignty, democracy, authoritarianism, and peace. In this context, István Hont’s seminal work on the tensions between commerce, sovereignty, and nationalism (Jealousy of Trade, 2005) may offer a productive point of departure for rethinking the entanglement of domestic and international political order today.

2) Nation-State Models and Federalism in the Baltic Space: Transnational and Comparative Perspectives

We also welcome projects that trace the genesis of the nation-state category in the Baltic region (the three Baltic states, but also Poland, Finland, and Sweden); transborder comparisons within and across this region are encouraged.

Proposals may explore:

• Competing models of nation-statehood in the region
• Conceptions of small-statehood and geopolitical vulnerability
• Debates on sovereignty, democracy, and federalism
• Regional visions of international order

Applicants are encouraged to submit a detailed research proposal outlining their analytical framework, research questions, methodology, potential sources, and the specific contribution their project aims to make to the field.

Main supervisor: Prof Eva Piirimäe, Professor of Political Theory, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, ETIS profile, [email protected]

We invite dissertation proposals of a topic of the candidate’s own choosing, on the condition that the proposal is on the research areas proposed by one of the available PhD supervisors at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies. The list of available supervisors can be found on our webpage.

Interested candidates should prepare a research proposal outlining the specific research project they would pursue under the general themes listed, and based on the proposal guidelines outlined on our webpage.

Additionally, the proposal should indicate one or two potential supervisors, based on the institute’s list of available supervisors and their research areas. Candidates are expected to familiarize themselves with the research profiles of the prospective supervisor(s) and reflect briefly on how the specific expertise of the indicated supervisor(s), as evidenced by their publications, projects, and supervision history, fits with the proposed doctoral project. In sum, it is essential for prospective PhD students to submit a well-developed research project, and to clearly articulate the fit between their research interests and the research conducted at the Skytte Institute.

Art Alishani, MA (TalTech)

Topic: "Harnessing the potential of algorithms and intelligent technologies to build robust and human-centric public administrations: Cross-border digital public services"
Supervisors: Vincent Homburg and Mihkel Solvak

Kocha Changelia, MA (CEU)

Topic: Does Migration Matter? Ownership, Salience, and the Far-Right: How Issue Competition Drives Electoral Success in Western Europe
Supervisor: Piret Ehin

Radityo Dharmaputra, MA (Glasgow/ Tartu)

Topic: "Contemporary Russian Foreign Policy Discourse towards Asia: Assessing the Logic of Causality in the Discursive Structure of Identity"
Supervisor: Eiki Berg

Harry John Fennell, MA (Glasgow/Tartu/KIMEP)

Topic: Orthodoxy Beyond Autocracy: Religion, Solidarity, and Civil Society in the Romanov Empire, 1836–1917
Supervisor: Catherine Gibson

Ville Tapani Haapanen, MA (Tartu)

Topic: "Green parties in the globalization divide"
Supervisors: Liisa Talving and Zack Grant

Biao He, MA (OsloMet)

Topic: "E-governance for all: How does the Chinese local government bridge the digital divide that persons with disabilities experience in the use of e-governance services?"
Supervisors: Vincent Homburg and Mihkel Solvak

Urmas Hõbepappel, MA (Lund)

Topic: "Changing History – Changing the Present? Postmodernist Historiography and Political Change in China"
Supervisor: Andrey Makarychev

Ronek Jäär, MSc (Stockholm)

Topic: “The Impact on Policy Outcomes: A Study of Leadership Dynamics in the European Parliament between 2004 to 2024”
Supervisor: Stefano Braghiroli

Simon Sebastian Manfred Kiecker, MA (Bari/Gent/Tartu)

Topic: “Transforming Growth Models: The Political Economy of Growth Model Restructuring Amid the Energy Crisis and Energy Transition in the Baltics and East Central Europe”
Supervisor: Edgars Eihmanis

Ibrahim Mammadli, MA (Tartu)

Topic: From Ballots to Bullets and Back: Explaining Strategic Shifts in Secessionist Movements
Supervisor: Shpend Kursani

Natalia Kovyliaeva, MA (CEU)

Topic: "Gaining Voice: Digital Feminist and Women's Movements in Post-Soviet Countries"
Supervisor: Katrin Uba and Andrey Makarychev

Karl Lembit Laane, MA (Tartu)

Topic: "The Crisis and Renewal of Procedural Democracy"
Supervisor: Eva Piirimäe

Thomas Michael Linsenmaier, MA (FU Berlin)

Topic: "The interplay between regional international societies – towards a European security architecture?”
Supervisor:

Tatiana Lupacheva, MA (Tartu)

Topic: "The electoral consequences of personalised parliamentary behaviour: A comparative textual analysis of legislative speeches"
Supervisor: Martin Mölder

Akbar Mammadov, MA (Tartu)
Topic: "The Impact of Russia's War on Ukraine on the Quality of Democracy in Europe: A Study of Changes in Voter Behavior and Party Competition"
Supervisor: Piret Ehin

Aigerim Nurseitova, MA (Tartu)

Topic: “Navigating Imperial Shadows and Nationalist Waves: A Comparative Analysis of Ethnic Minority Identity Construction in Estonia and Kazakhstan”
Supervisor: Catherine Gibson

Bogdan Romanov, MA (Tartu)

Topic: "Electronic voting in Russia: the scrutiny of 'i-voting' in an authoritarian context"
Supervisor: Mihkel Solvak and Margarita Zavadskaya

Oliver Rowe, MA (Geneva)

Topic: "Self-determination in Theory and Practice: The Reconfiguration of the 'Russian' Empire, 1914-1924"
Supervisor: Eva Piirimäe

Azniv Tadevosyan, MA (Tartu)

Topic: "Dissensus in Music and Cinema in Post-2012 Russia"
Supervisor: Catherine Gibson

Pirjo Turk, MA (Tartu)

Topic: "Applying Behavioral Insights to Decrease Carbon Footprint of Digitalization"
Supervisor: Leonore Riitsalu

Kristiina Vain, MA (Tartu)

Topic: The relationship between well-being and financial well-being in Central and Eastern Europe and Estonia
Supervisor: Leonore Riitsalu

Maili Vilson, MA (Tartu)

Topic: "The Europeanization of national foreign policy during the crisis in Ukraine"
Supervisor: Piret Ehin

Kristel Vits, MA (Tartu)

Topic: "De facto states and dependences: disentangling the interrelationship between de facto statehood and patronage"
Supervisor: Eiki Berg

Louis Wierenga, MA (Toronto)

Topic: "Ready for Battle: Threat narratives in the social media discourse of the radical right in Estonia and Latvia”
Supervisors: Vello Pettai and Andres Kasekamp

Izzet Yalin Youksel, MA (Tartu)

Topic: "Understanding De Facto, Small and Microstates: Elite Navigations at the Crossroads of International Patron-Client Relationships and Ontological Insecurity"
Supervisor: Eiki Berg

Dissertations defended at the Institute since 2006

Click on the link to access the full dissertation online.

Sandra Hagelin, "Speaking borders, speaking Europe: entangled borders in governmental discourse across the Baltic and Nordic spaces", 2026.
Supervisors: Stefano Braghiroli and Thomas Diez

Stefan Dedovic, “European Union Digital Integration: Exploring the development and governance of cross-border digital public services", 2026.
Supervisors: Vincent Homburg, Mihkel Solvak and Joep Crompvoets

Logan Carmichael, "Cybersecurity governance responses in the Estonian digital governance model, 2007–2023", 2026.
Supervisor: Mihkel Solvak

Michael Cole, "The influence of Russian discourse on right-wing populist discourses in Ukraine and Georgia", 2025.
Supervisor: Andrey Makarychev

George Spencer Terry, "Demanding subjectivity: the radical right’s use of discursively empty referent objects within a post-foundational logics framework", 2025.
Supervisor: Andrey Makarychev

Butrint Berisha, "Exploring the role of civil society organisations in the foreign policy of contested states: An analysis of Kosovo, Palestine and Taiwan since 2010", 2025.
Supervisor: Eiki Berg

Eoin Micheál McNamara, "The risk society’s stabilisation failure? an analysis of NATO and the international security assistance force in Afghanistan", 2025.
Supervisors: Eiki Berg and Andres Kasekamp

Sanshiro Hosaka, "Nothing but Politics? Explaining the reproduction of Russian narratives about the events in Ukraine among Japanese scholars and intellectuals 2014–2019", 2025.
Supervisor: Andrey Makarychev

Ionut-Valentin Chiruta, "Triadic nexus relationships in an age of populism: interactions between Hungary, Romania and the Hungarian minority in Szeklerland“, 2023.
Supervisor: Vello Pettai

Lelde Luik, “Re-evaluating the Role of Representative Institutions in Radical Democratic Theory: Lessons from Democratic Identity Construction in Latvia”, 2023.
Supervisor: Viacheslav Morozov

Ivan Ulises Kentros Klyszcz, "How does violent conflict affect paradiplomacy? An exploratory research with cases from the North Caucasus.", 2022.
Supervisor: Eiki Berg

Andrii Nekoliak, "'Memory laws' and the patterns of collective memory regulation in Poland and Ukraine in 1989–2020: a comparative analysis", 2022.
Supervisor: Vello Pettai

Maksim Kulaev, "Trade unions, transformism and the survival of Russian authoritarianism", 2021.
Supervisor: Viatcheslav Morozov

Juhan Saharov, "From economic independence to political sovereignty: inventing “self-management” in the Estonian SSR", 2021.
Supervisor: Eva Piirimäe

Shota Kakabadze, "'The Caucasian chalk circle': Georgia’s self at the East/West nexus", 2020.
Supervisors: Andrey Makarychev and Maria Mälksoo

Lukas Pukelis, "Informal mutual oversight mechanisms in coalition governments: Insights from the Baltic states for theory building", 2018.
Supervisor: Vello Pettai

Ryhor Nizhnikau, "Externally induced institutional change in the EU’s Eastern neighbourhood: migration and environment reforms in Ukraine and Moldova in 2010–2015", 2017.
Supervisor: Viatcheslav Morozov

Kats Kivistik, "Relevance, content and effects of left-right identification in countries with different regime trajectories", 2017.
Supervisors: Piret Ehin and André Freire

Kristian Lau Nielsen, "Soft Power Europe: The Lesser Contradiction in Terms and Practices", 2016.
Supervisor: Eiki Berg

Birgit Poopuu, "Acting is everything: the European unioon and the process of becoming a peacebuilder", 2016.
Supervisor: Maria Mälksoo

Kristina Kallas, "Revisiting the triadic nexus: An analysis of the ethnopolitical interplay between Estonia, Russia and Estonian Russians", 2016.
Supervisor: Vello Pettai

Liisa Talving, "Economic conditions and incumbent support: when and how does the economy matter?", 2016.
Supervisors: Piret Ehin and Kristjan Vassil

Raul Toomla, "De facto states in the international system: Conditions for (in)formal engagement", 2014.
Supervisor: Eiki Berg

Andro Kitus, "A Post-Structuralist “Concept” of Legitimacy", 2014.
Supervisors: Vello Pettai and Lasse Thomassen

Mari-Liis Sööt, "Explaining corruption: Opportunities for corruption and institutional trust", 2013.
Supervisor: Tiina Randma-Liiv

Kadri Lühiste, "Regime Support in European Democracies", 2013.
Supervisor: Piret Ehin

Viljar Veebel, "The role and impact of positive conditionality in the EU pre-acession policy", 2012.
Supervisor: Eiki Berg

Alar Kilp, "Church authority in society, culture and politics after Communism", 2012.
Supervisor: Rein Taagepera

Maria Groeneveld, "The role of the state and society relationship in the foreign policy making process", 2012.
Supervisors: Andres Kasekamp and Alexander Astrov

Heiko Pääbo, "Potential of Collective Memory Based International Identity Conflicts in Post-Imperial Space: Comparison of Russian Master Narrative with Estonian, Ukrainian and Georgian Master Narratives", 2011.
Supervisor: Andres Kasekamp

Mihkel Solvak, "Private members’ bills in parliament - a comparative study of Finland and Estonia", 2011.
Supervisor: Vello Pettai

Holger Mölder, "Cooperative security dilemma – practicing the Hobbesian security culture in the Kantian security environment", 2010.
Supervisor: Eiki Berg

Allan Sikk, "Highways to power: New party success in three young democracies", 2006.
Supervisors: Rein Taagepera and Mogens N. Pedersen