Postdoctoral Associate – Rethinking the Anti-Corruption Toolkit

Position description

ISPS External Fellow Professor Samuel Bagg (University of South Carolina) is seeking a postdoctoral research associate for a two-year, full-time appointment, starting Fall 2026 or as soon as possible thereafter (i.e., start date is flexible). The purpose of the role is to help develop a non-partisan collaborative public scholarship project: “Rethinking the Anti-Corruption Toolkit.” The second year of this appointment is conditional based on performance and resources.

The project is funded by and affiliated with the Yale Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS), through its Democratic Innovations program. However, it is physically headquartered at the University of South Carolina, under the direction of Prof. Bagg. The holder of the postdoctoral position will thus be hired and paid by Yale, but will be expected to relocate to Columbia, SC for the duration of the position.

The key aim of the project is to rethink and expand the range of institutional models we consider in our attempts to keep public institutions accountable to the public aims they are meant to serve. (See this writeup - https://isps.yale.edu/news/blog/2025/0 6/experts-at-yale-explore-new-tools-to-tackle-corruption - of an initial conference on this theme, as well as the extended project description below).

More concretely, the postdoctoral associate would assist Prof. Bagg in the following tasks over the course of the two-year position: (a) building and managing a team of collaborators and contributors from a wide range of scholarly disciplines and organizational contexts; (b) building and maintaining a large database of non-traditional or underutilized institutional models, drawing on multi-disciplinary sources across history, anthropology, organizations, design, law, business, etc…; (c) producing an interactive web-based platform to enable open-ended exploration of that database; (d) collaborating on a series of scholarly articles that utilize and publicize the research collected in this database; (e) producing a suite of targeted materials aimed at policymakers and organizational leaders in specific contexts; and (f) planning a series of scholarly convenings to assist with the above. In addition, the postdoctoral associate would also have substantial scope to pursue independent scholarly projects, with guidance from Prof. Bagg and other USC faculty. There is no teaching associated with the position.

The position is open to those who have recently completed their Ph.D. (in the last 6 years) in a related field, or expect to complete it by Fall 2026. Salary is negotiable depending on qualifications.

Application instructions

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