Postdoctoral Research Associate in Geoeconomic Policy Discourse and Justification Mechanisms in Edinburgh

Grade and Salary: Grade 7 - £37,694 - £47,389 per annum

FTE and working pattern: Full Time (1FTE), Fixed Term for 33 months

Holiday Entitlement: 33 days annual leave plus 9 buildings closed days (and Christmas Eve when it falls on a weekday)

Based at Panmure House, Edinburgh. Reporting to Professor Adam Dixon, Adam Smith Chair (Principal Investigator).

The Project Markets Under Siege investigates why liberal democracies increasingly depart from free market principles when facing competitive pressure from China, often on the basis of simplified narratives about Chinese “state capitalism” that may not align with the accumulated empirical evidence. The project runs for 33 months and comprises three research components operating in parallel, each led by a postdoctoral researcher and integrated through monthly team meetings and quarterly integration workshops:

• Component 1 — Mechanisms of Justification for Geoeconomic Intervention: systematic mapping of the rhetorical strategies and institutional mechanisms through which liberal democracies justify departures from market principles.
• Component 2 — Systematic Evidence Review on Market Competition: systematic literature review and meta-analysis of evidence on competitive dynamics in Chinese and Western markets.
• Component 3 — Intellectual History of Liberal Market Principles Under Competitive Pressure: analysis of how liberal thinkers from Adam Smith to the Cold War liberals understood the relationship between international competition and market freedom.

The project launches in 2026, the 250th anniversary of the publication of The Wealth of Nations, and includes an international workshop series in Edinburgh, Washington DC, Asia and London. Planned outputs include seven to nine peer-reviewed articles, policy briefs, public essays and a project monograph.

Purpose of the Role: Each postholder takes day-to-day intellectual and operational responsibility for one of the project’s three research components, under the supervision of the Principal Investigator. The posts are designed to give early-career scholars substantial autonomy and first-authorship opportunities within a coordinated collective endeavour: each postholder leads the design and delivery of their component’s research, publishes from it, and contributes actively to the integration of findings across components. The posts also carry a significant engagement dimension, including delivery of the workshop series, policy briefs and public-facing outputs. Supervision is provided through biweekly one-to-one meetings with the Principal Investigator, alongside mentorship in publication strategy and peer review. Postholders will also work directly with the project’s visiting scholars during their residencies at Panmure House.

Responsibilities Common to all Three Posts:

• Research delivery: Design, plan and deliver the research programme for the assigned component within the 33-month timetable, in consultation with the Principal Investigator. Conduct primary and secondary research using the methods specified for the component, including the collection, coding, management and analysis of qualitative and/or quantitative material. Design and conduct semi-structured elite interviews, including topic guides, participant recruitment, transcription and analysis. Secure and maintain research ethics approval and manage data in line with University policy, funder requirements and applicable data protection law. Maintain transparent and reproducible research records, including search protocols, coding frameworks and analytical decisions.
• 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.

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:

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

Desirable Criteria:

• Reading competence in Mandarin sufficient to work with Chinese official documents.
• Experience with qualitative analysis software (for example NVivo, ATLAS.ti or MAXQDA) or computational text analysis methods.
• Existing networks among policy practitioners in Washington DC and/or Brussels.
• Experience of writing for policy audiences (policy briefs, testimony, commentary).
• 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.

Heriot-Watt University is committed to securing equality of opportunity in employment and to the creation of an environment in which individuals are selected, trained, promoted, appraised, and otherwise treated on the sole basis of their relevant merits and abilities. Equality and diversity are all about maximising potential and creating a culture of inclusion for all.

Heriot-Watt University values diversity across our university community and welcomes applications from all sectors of society, particularly from underrepresented groups.