General description

The Amsterdam Law School, Netherlands China Law Center PhD graduate training in Law and Regulation offers students from China and abroad an interdisciplinary and comparative socio-legal training enabling them to independently study the formation and functioning of law and regulation in China. Students will become part of the Amsterdam Law School PhD Graduate Programme, studying general courses in legal theory and research methodology. Within the Center, PhD students will further specialize by studying regulatory theory and social-science research methods, which they will apply during fieldwork in China.

The center aims to train a new generation of scholars who combine the best methodological and theoretical backgrounds with an in-depth knowledge of law and regulation in China. These students will offer innovative analyses on how law and regulation function in the world's largest legal system, and how such functioning can be improved. They will be able to combine legal reasoning with empirical data, and through comparative knowledge be able to understand what issues are unique to China and which may have common origins and possibly common solutions.

Timeframe

In the first year, PhD students will learn the appropriate social science and legal methodologies and theories to prepare for a year of fieldwork on their chosen topic in China. During their first year students are to work on their research design, focusing on combining the right research question, with the right theoretical and social relevance to the right methodology of data collection and analytical framework. During this year they will enroll in courses offered to all Amsterdam PhD students on legal theory and research methods, as well as study specific topics related to regulation and fieldwork in China. After the end of one year all students will be evaluated, during which a decision is made whether to continue or not.

From the second year onwards, students will spend at least one year doing fieldwork in a selected area or areas in China. They do such fieldwork in order to learn how law actually functions and in order to find ways through which to decrease the gap between law in the books and law in action. Finally in the last phase of research the PhD candidate analyses the fieldwork findings and publishes the findings either in academic papers and/or thesis chapters.

Topics

The PhD research should fit (broadly) within the research program of the center and focus on at least one of the areas of specialization and one of the lines of research (lines 2-6). Exceptionally interesting research topics and good research designs that do not fit within one of the research lines, but do generally contribute to our knowledge of the formation and functioning of Chinese law may also be considered for supervision.

Supervision

Students will be supervised by prof. Benjamin van Rooij, while also benefiting from the expertise and contacts of other fellows, partners, and international advisors of the center. In addition, students will have frequent classes and discussion workshops with other PhD researchers at Amsterdam Law School to discuss their research outlines, data collection experiences, analyses and writing.

Who can apply

Students in possession of a degree that is the equivalent of a Dutch masters in preferably law, or exceptionally one of the social sciences or area studies, who do not yet hold a PhD degree in law (for more information see the Amsterdam University PhD guidelines), with an interest in the interdisciplinary study of law in China. All students must have excellent written and oral language skills in English and Chinese. Students should also have sufficient funding to pay for their time doing research as well as for related research costs.

How to apply

Prospective students are to send their research outline, their resume, as well as a letter motivating their choice for this program as well as their ideas about how to finance themselves to prof. B. van Rooij, b.vanrooij@uva.nl.