Research Grant
The Governance and Local Development Institute at the University of Gothenburg (GLD) announces the availability of a limited number of research fellowships for short-term research on Governance and Local Development. Awards averaging 25,000 SEK will be offered biannually to support research projects related to critical governance issues. Recipients are expected to submit a paper to be included in the GLD Working Paper Series. This call is open to all scholars, regardless of any prior GLD affiliation.
The next round of applications will open in the fall of 2023.
Our Mission
“We aim to promote human welfare by conducting scientifically rigorous research across the globe. Our research focuses on answering a fundamental question: why are some communities able to provide secure environments, good education, adequate healthcare, and other factors that encourage human development, while others fail to do so? We engage with communities across the world, develop methodological tools, gather data, undertake analyses on major issues affecting societies today, and disseminate findings to academics, relevant policy-makers, and the communities in which we work.”
Themes should relate to the GLD mission, for example:
- Local governance challenges
- Service delivery as it varies across local contexts
- Relationship between state and non-state actors
- Level of corruption and citizens’ perceptions of it
- How citizens solve disputes with officials, families, and friends and how state or non-state actors are involved
- Participation in local elections and political campaigns
- How security services are provided in transitional periods and/or under weak central states
Previous Grant Awardees
SPRING 2022
Marie Gagné, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Political Science, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.
Project Title: Protests against Large-Scale Land Acquisitions, Electoral Democracy, and the Emergence of Rural Citizenship in Senegal
Research Country: Senegal
Fall 2021
Adan Martinez
Project Title: Brazilian Subnational Everyday Health and Pandemic Politics.
Research Country: Brazil
Spring 2021
Adam Auerbach
Project Title: Citizenship Practice in India’s Middle-Class Unauthorized Colonies
Research Country: India
Fall 2020
Valesca Lima
Project Title: Citizen Mobilization for Housing - Struggles to Stay at Home During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Research Countries: Brazil and Portugal
Mulenga Chonzi Mulenga
Project Title: Assessing the Performance of Local Authorities in Zambia During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Research Country: Zambia
Ngoc Phan
Project Title: Meritocratic Promotion, Corruption at Local Governments, and the Durability of Single-Party Regimes
Research Country: Vietnam
Spring 2020
Paige Bollen
Project Title: Legibility from Below: Language, Visibility, and Ethnic Politics in Africa
Research Country: Ghana
Anirvan Chowdhury
Project Title: How do Religiously Conservative Parties Mobilize Women in Election Campaigns?
Research Country: India
Karen E. Ferree
Project Title: Choice, Choice Set and Ethnic Voting in Africa
Research Country: Ghana
2018 - 2019
Sebastian Van Baalen
Project Title: Guns and Governance: Local Elites, Civilian Resistance, and Responsive Rebel Governance in Côte d’Ivoire
Research Country: Ivory Coast
Working Paper, Reconceptualising Rebel Rule: The Responsiveness of Rebel Governance in Man, Côte d’Ivoire, can be found here.
Steven Brooke
Project Title: Local Religious Institutions and Protection from ExtraJudicial Killings: Evidence from a Survey of Catholic Parishes in the Philippines
Research Country: Philippines
Jacob Cassani
Project Title: Up in the Mountains: Informal Governance and Hybrid Sovereignty in the Northern Biqa’a, Lebanon
Research Country: Lebanon
Working Paper, Bread and Salt: Labour, Reputation, and Trust between Syrian Refugees and Lebanese Hashish Farmers in the Northern Biqa’a, can be found here.
Chao-Yo Cheng
Project Title: Socio-Political Factors of Reliable Electricity Supply and the Willingness to Pay: Experimental Evidence from Households and Power Sector
Research Country: India
2017 - 2018
Tugba Bozcaga
Project Title: The State at the Local Level: Socialized Bureaucrats and Government Performance
Research Country: Turkey
Working Paper, The Social Bureaucrat: How Social Proximity
among Bureaucrats A ects Local Governance can be found here.
If you rather listen, find the Governance Uncovered podcast episode with Tugba here.
Salma Mousa
Project Title: Overcoming the Trust Deficit: Inter-group Contact and Associational Life in Post-ISIS Iraq
Research Country: Iraq
Working Paper, Creating Coexistence: Intergroup Contact and Soccer in Post-ISIS Iraq, can be found here.
If you rather listen, find the Governance Uncovered podcast episode with Salma here.
Application Procedure:
Interested candidates should send the following:
- A proposal including a description of the project/research plan (not more than 5 pgs long), schedule of work, and detailed budget estimate.
- The budget estimate should be in SEK and must not include funding for the applicant(s) salary/salaries but may include funding for a research assistant salary or similar. We do accept proposals for contributory funding (i.e., using the STG to fund part of a larger project), but awarding of funding is contingent upon the applicant receiving enough funding for the whole project.
- A current CV
- A sample of previously written work in English (a published paper, conference paper, book chapter, etc.)
Only applications in English will be considered.
Hannah Early Bagdanov, PhD student at the University of Notre Dame, Dept. of Political Science.
Project Title: Everyday Forms of Engagement with the State: Contested Territories, Social Networks, and the Pursuit of Welfare in Israel/Palestine.
Research Country: Israel/Palestine
Tanu Kumar
Project Title: Citizenship Practice in India’s Middle-Class Unauthorized Colonies
Research Country: India
Sarah Thompson
Project Title: Roadblocks Remain: Constraints to Women's Political Participation and Mobility in Pakistan
Research Country: Pakistan
Changxin Patrick Xu
Project Title: The Parking Autonomous Committee in Urban China: Evidence from Shenzhen, Xi'an, and Nanchang
Research Country: China
Blair Read
Project Title: When Voice Leads to Exit: Politics of Education in Developing Democracies
Research Country: India
Salih Yasun
Project Title: Structuring Inclusive Local Governance in Post-Authoritarian Tunisia
Research Country: Tunisia
Deodatus Patrick Shayo
Project Title: Citizen Participation in Local Government Elections in the Age of Crowdsourcing: Explorations and Considerations in Tanzania
Research Country: Tanzania
Matthias Krönke
Project Title: The Effect of Democratic Accountability on Basic Service Delivery
Research Country: Malawi
Guillermo Toral
Project Title: State Prosecutors: How Does Their Work Impact Public Service Delivery in the Municipalities That They Are in Charge Of?
Research Country: Brazil
Marika Sosnowski
Project Title: Ceasefires and Rebel Governance in Syria
Research Country: Syria
Working Paper, Ceasefires as Statebuilding, can be found here.
Rustam Urinboyev
Project Title: Law, Society, and Corruption: Lessons from the Post-Soviet Context
Research Country: Uzbekistan
Working Paper, Everyday Corruption and Social Norms in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan, can be found here.