Are you an undergraduate interested in conducting research to strengthen democracy? The Democratic Erosions Consortium seeks undergraduate students to serve in a remote capacity as part of our 2024 Summer Fellowship Program (running June 3rd through August 9th, 2024). You will work among students from eight universities (American University, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Texas Southern University, The College of William & Mary, University of Chicago, University of Houston, and Xavier University of Louisiana). We have successfully run our Fellowship program since 2019. This cross-university team will work collaboratively on the following, or similar, projects:
- Expand a database of global incidents of democratic erosion. The Democratic Erosion Event Dataset is a collection of events related to the precursors and symptoms of, and resistance to, democratic backsliding around the world. The contents of this dataset are drawn from case studies produced by students taking a course on Democratic Erosion, which is now taught at more than 60 institutions. Since summer 2023, democracy interns have begun to code Freedom House country reports to capture additional events. As part of this process, you will expand the dataset by “coding” new case studies and Freedom House reports for addition to the dataset, and validating/cleaning existing data. You will also have the opportunity to improve the methodology for coding, adding or modifying indicators, as well as producing original research based on the dataset, described below.
- Draft policy briefs. You will research particular patterns of democratic erosion and resilience based on analysis of the dataset and other relevant data sources and literature, in order to write briefs on key trends for a policy audience. Briefs may include topics related to state violence and democratic erosion, how countries successfully rebound from backsliding, and understanding when and how resistance to authoritarian consolidation or democratic backsliding succeeds (or fails), for example.
- Conduct quantitative analyses. You will help conduct quantitative analyses of the data for an academic audience.
- Contribute to programming in the Democratic Erosion consortium. You may have the opportunity to help prepare additional pedagogical materials and events for students, faculty, and practitioners tackling questions of democratic erosion and resilience.
What we offer:
Each intern will receive:
- Funding for you to travel to Washington, DC from Monday, June 3 – Friday, June 7, 2024 for an in-person gathering of all the interns, at an Annual Convening with scholars, policymakers, and practitioners associated with the Democratic Erosion Consortium.
- Assistance with applying for Harvard’s public service internship funding sources for unpaid internships.
- The opportunity to work remotely (aside from the in-person gathering). You can live wherever you choose.
- Training at the beginning of the summer on topics related to democratic erosion and methods of coding case studies into databases.
- A possible opportunity to present work from the internship to practitioners and policymakers in the area of democracy and governance at the end of the summer.
- The opportunity to work on multiple projects, to ensure that you will always be engaged and excited.
What we ask of you:
- This opportunity is only available to undergraduate students (current first-, second-, and third-years).
- You will work 30-35 hours/week throughout the 10-week internship.
- Apply your creativity, energy, ideas, and work ethic to create excellent results.
- This is not a typical internship, as it involves advanced work and uses remote collaboration tools. Self-starters are required.
