PhD Studentship in the Ideas of Anti-Autocratic Movements in Africa (2026)

The 3.5 year Sussex PhD Studentship in the Ideas of Anti-Autocratic Movements in Africa (2026) Is now inviting applications for September 2026.

NEWREPUBLIC is a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant which asks: what are the ideas that animate anti-autocratic movements in Africa, and beyond? Despite the importance of this question, answers to it remains remarkably underdeveloped. NEWREPUBLIC will galvanise research on this topic, with the aim of generating practitioner-oriented conclusions. It will be undertaken by a team of five led by the Principal Investigator, Dr. Dan Paget.

 One of the foundational claims for this project is that a series of anti-autocratic movements in Africa articulate people power philosophies. These people power movements, like those in Tanzania and Zimbabwe, put ideas of power and domination at the centre of their visions of democratic struggle. As NEWREPUBLIC asks what ideas animate anti-autocratic movements, it will endeavour to (1) extend, (2) enrich and (3) complicate these foundational claims. It will extend them by investigating whether and how these people power philosophies are and are not mirrored in the ideas of other such movements in Africa. It will enrich them by investigating what complementary ideas and practices these movements embrace or confront. It will complicate them by investigating what contradictory or countervailing ideas and practices they also embrace.

What will you focus on?

As a PhD student in the NEWREPUBLIC team, you will undertake an independent research project of your own design, in pursuit of one or more of the three goals described above. Potential research questions could include, or be variations upon, but not be limited to, any of the following:

• How do other anti-autocratic movements in Africa critique autocracy, envisage democracy, and/or conceptualise their struggles for democracy?
• How are these movements’ ideas instantiated in performance and practice?
• How do these movements draw on or speak to the ideas of other texts, be they from political theory, street talk, online cultures, or some other culture of thought and practice?
• How do they envisage and instantiate in practice their relationships with other movements and allies?

The interpretation of meanings, inscribed in texts or practices, will be core to your research. So will the analysis of patterns in those meanings. However, you may choose from a series of equally valid qualitative methodologies through which to approach that meaning-making, including elite interviews, non-elite interviews, ethnographic research, netnographic research, analysis of texts and the analysis of images.

 What you will also contribute to, with the NEWREPUBLIC team?

• A rule-bound content analysis of movements’ speeches;
• The organisation and delivery of project workshops with scholars and activists;
• The organisation and delivery of project policy seminars with anti-autocratic activists and stakeholders; and
• The wider mission of the project.

How to apply

To apply, please visit our website for full application instructions and further details about the programme, supervisors and timetable.

Closing date for applications: Friday 6th March 2026

Interviews will be held for shortlisted candidates in late April 2026.

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