The Post-Socialist European City in Translation
Christopher Ansell, Professor
Political Science
Closed. This professor is continuing with Fall 2023 apprentices on this project; no new apprentices needed for Spring 2024.
**Advanced German, Polish, or Hungarian language skills are needed to participate in this project.**
The European continent has undergone major shifts since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Eleven countries have emerged from a totalitarian Communist system, embracing capitalism and democracy and joining the European Union. These transitions had major effects on governing institutions and practice across the continent. Yet many scholars have found that Socialist legacies endure in spite of major reform efforts, learning initiatives, and aid conditionality. This project seeks to look at the differential legacies of these two major transformations largely in post-Socialist Europe, though will also use comparison cases in Western Europe. While existing research has explored the issue at the national level, this research will focus on subnational variation by looking at the city level.
Role: This project may be especially appealing to those who are either native speakers of German, Hungarian, or Polish or advanced language majors with a secondary interest in politics. Students will discover the way that European cities fit within the complex multilevel governance of the European Union and the significant ways they vary from one another.
The analytical projects for each language differ as follows:
For students speaking German, we have collected document from three archives in Germany, focusing primarily on the transition period. Two of these archives are local archives (from Frankfurt-Oder and Greifswald) while the third is national. We are trying to categorize the documents to be able to build a better understanding of local transitions around the fall of communism. Students will primarily be reading documents from one of these archives and helping us identify and categorize the documents they encounter. As such, students will have direct exposure to primary source, archival historical documents and will help the investigators look for patterns in the data. They will learn about the the transition away from communism in the former East Germany.
Students with Polish language skills will be helping the investigators do research on contemporary, anti-LGBTQ+ policies implemented at the municipal level in Poland. Students will search for local media reporting about the implementation, and occasional revocation, of these zones for on-going research about where these zones were implemented and their impact on local politics. Students will learn about contemporary politics in Poland and gain better understanding of anti-LGBTQ+ policies implemented by multiple levels of government as well as exposure to the current Polish media environment.
Students with Hungarian language skills will be helping to collect more recent data on Hungarian local by-elections as well as to help fill in biographical information about mayoral candidates from previous elections for new and on-going research about Hungarian local elections. If time, students may also help collect data about district-level variation in the dominant national party, Fidesz's, electoral strategy in Budapest in the previous local elections. Students will gain familiarity with multi-level political processes in Hungary, and work directly with government electoral data.
Students will receive hands-on training in data collection and interpreting the relationships and networks, and strengths and weaknesses, of subnational policy making in Europe. They will have experience working with foreign language documents and on translation in a professional environment. Their efforts will significantly inform research that will explore urban policymaking and subnational politics in contemporary Europe. Students will learn about urban and subnational politics in European countries and changes brought by both the post-Socialist transition and admission to the European Union. Beyond substantive areas, students will learn about the early, exploratory stages of large research projects, formulating research questions, and collecting/interpreting data. Supervision will be done remotely with occasional group Zoom meetings, so students must be self-motivated and able to work independently.
Qualifications: Applicants should have basic familiarity with European politics. Advanced language skills, in German, Polish, or Hungarian, are a requirement.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Matthew Stenberg, Post-Doc
Hours: to be negotiated
Off-Campus Research Site: remote
Social Sciences Arts & Humanities