Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Comparative Political Economy of Market Competition

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.

Comparative Political Economy of Market Competition 

This post leads Component 2, a systematic literature review and meta-analysis of existing research on competitive dynamics in Chinese and Western markets. The component synthesises evidence typically siloed across economics, political science and business studies in order to assess where the “state capitalism” characterisation is most and least empirically accurate, and how Western markets compare on competition metrics.

Post-specific duties 

• Design and execute a systematic review protocol following established social science review standards, including comprehensive searches of Web of Science, Scopus, EconLit and Google Scholar and transparent inclusion and exclusion criteria.
• Code a large corpus of studies for sector, competition indicators (for example concentration measures, mark-ups, entry and exit), institutional factors and time frame.
• Conduct meta-analytic synthesis where comparable quantitative measures exist, and thematic synthesis of qualitative findings.
• Undertake secondary data analysis drawing on sources such as OECD Competition Trends, World Bank Enterprise Surveys and competition authority databases, and produce comparative visualisations of concentration, entry barriers and merger activity.
• Conduct approximately 15 to 20 semi-structured interviews with scholars of Chinese markets, industrial organisation specialists and competition economists.
• Draft short sectoral vignettes illustrating broader patterns for integration into policy briefs.

Essential Criteria

1. PhD (awarded or expected before the start date) in comparative political economy, economics, industrial organisation, economic geography, business and management or a cognate discipline.
2. Demonstrable expertise in the analysis of market competition, market structure or industrial organisation, including familiarity with standard competition indicators.
3. Experience of systematic evidence synthesis, meta-analysis or another form of structured, protocol-driven literature review.
4. Competence in quantitative data handling and analysis using at least one of R, Stata or Python, including publication-quality visualisation.
5. Substantive knowledge of the Chinese political economy and of debates on state capitalism, marketisation and industrial policy.

Desirable Criteria

1. Proficiency in Mandarin, including the ability to work with Chinese-language firm-level and policy sources.
2. Experience conducting research on or in China, including fieldwork or interview access.
3. Familiarity with PRISMA or comparable reporting standards for systematic reviews.
4. Experience working with firm-level databases (for example Orbis, CSMAR or Compustat).
5. Publication record spanning more than one of economics, political science and business research.

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.

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.

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