Psychology OppAttune Full-time PhD Studentship – Ukraine & Everyday Extremism.

Democracies and the European project are under threat by extremism and lack of political and social dialogue. Existential insecurities arising out of economic and refugee-related crises have been exacerbated by Covid-19 to create re-bordering e.g., xenophobic-nationalism and re-shoring e.g., the localisation of production. Oppositional worldviews, narratives and dissensus within public debate are all vital to a functioning democracy. However destructive polarisation of oppositional us/them logic is at the core of the rise of extremist narratives. Disruptive actors polarise oppositional logic using disinformation, emotions, hot cognitions, conspiracy theories and mistrust to create new forms of direct action. This direct action is understood to many as direct democracy. This direct action cultivates unlikely coalitions creating attractive alternative on-line/off-line worlds which spread extreme narratives into the mainstream via deep rooted sociological and historical pathways. OppAttune is a new Horizon-Europe project that will track, attune and limit extreme narratives to foreground EU transnational freedoms and multilateralism. Specifically, it will track the evolution of oppositional extreme ideologies and protectionist decision-making, develop an innovative attunement model and tests a series of interventions at the national and transnational levels which limit the spread of extremism. OppAttune revitalises trust in key democratic institutions, promoting transnational freedoms and multilateralism.  

This PhD studentship is located within social and political psychology and will be focused on the evolution of political narratives within the Ukraine, Hungary and Russia region. Development of the design of the PhD and access to each country will be supported by colleagues within Work Package 6 – Attuning Public Dialogue & Narratives. The successful candidate should be able to speak and interpret Ukrainian and preferably Russian. They will have an interest in developing transnational methods using dialogical and narrative approaches (Mahendran, 2015; 2017). 

The PhD is supervised by Professor Kesi Mahendran (Open University) and Dr Sandra Obradović (Open University), Professor Umut Korkut (Glasgow Caledonian University) & Jasmin Jasarevic (Director, PRONI Center for Youth Development, Bosnia & Herzegovina). 

For pre-submission enquiries, prospective applicants may write to Professor Kesi Mahendran (kesi.mahendran@open.ac.uk) and Dr Sandra Obradovic (Sandra.obradovic@open.ac.uk)