Alexander Dodge

This PhD project is based in the Department of Geography and Social Anthropology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and is embedded in the research group Geographies of Just and Sustainable Transitions . The successful candidate will work within NTNU’s strategic energy area, Beyond the Fossil Fuel Era , in a multidisciplinary and international research environment. The project examines how democratic states in petroleum-producing nations negotiate the uncertainties of moving beyond fossil fuels. It focuses on the political contradictions, strategies, counterforces, and backlashes that shape post-fossil-fuel transition pathways, drawing on energy geographies, cultural political economy, and/or sustainability transitions. The study may be limited to the Norwegian context or take a comparative perspective that includes other democratic petroleum-producing nations. The PhD fellow will investigate the role of institutional legacies, vested interests, labor, expertise, and civil society in shaping public affairs, government initiatives, and domestic and international relations around the petroleum sector and transition processes. The project is framed around current debates on how states respond to changing oil and gas markets, climate commitments, and political contestation over the future of fossil-fuel production. The position offers participation in a dynamic department with both early-career and senior researchers, together with opportunities to contribute to academic publications, public-facing dissemination, international conferences, and research stays abroad. The fellow will be supervised by Alexander Dodge and co-supervised by Amber Nordholm and Espen Moe . The position is announced for a three-year period and is intended for a candidate pursuing research on the governance, politics, and social dimensions of transitions in petroleum-dependent democracies.