Research
Research
In its research and teaching, the Department of Government primarily focuses on comparative and Austrian politics. Its research is concerned with political behaviour, political actors, such as political parties and politicians, political institutions, the processes governed by these institutions, as well as their outcomes. It includes work on political participation, voting behaviour, parties and party competition, coalition politics and Austrian politics in general and is mostly based on rationalist and behavioural approaches.
Our goal is to conduct high-level, internationally competitive research in the area of Comparative Politics with the collaboration of international project partners and research networks. At the Faculty of Social Sciences the department is mainly engaged in the key research area ''Political Competition and Communication: Democratic Representation in Changing Societies'.
The department’s approach places it in the discipline’s empirical-analytical core and is mostly based on quantitative social science methods. To map empirical phenomena accurately, researcher in the department focus on the continuous development of survey design, as well as on the analysis of empirical data by applying the best suited statistical model. The department aims to achieve the best work on Austrian politics and to make important contributions to the international academic literature on Comparative Government and Politics.
An overview of current publications and activities at the department can be found below and on the personal websites of our team.
Political Institutions
Institutions play a key role in political systems, as they define the framework conditions for political decisions...
Political Representation
Political representation describes the institutional and social processes and practices that connect citizens and voters to...
Party Competition
Party competition is an essential component of democratic systems and describes the competition between political parties for votes...
Infrastructural Projects
Infrastructural projects are an essential component of scientific research, as they create the basis for long-term data collection...
Political Behaviour
Political behaviour deals with the individual and collective attitudes and actions of citizens in a political context...
Cooperations
Cooperations are a central component of scientific research, as they promote the exchange of knowledge, resources and...
Publications
Elite Cooperation and Affective Polarization: Evidence From German Coalitions
- Author(s)
- Markus Wagner, Eelco Harteveld
- Abstract
Affective polarization is a central characteristic of political competition, but high levels are seen as potentially harmful. In this article, we link the study of affective polarization to that of coalition politics, expecting that by signalling the willingness to cooperate in a coalition, political elites can reduce mutual dislike between political camps. We argue, first, that the impact of coalition formation should depend on the information content (‘surprisingness’) of this signal, and, second, that its effect should spill over to parties outside of the coalition. Combining 20 years of monthly voter-level data from Germany with data on national and regional coalitions, we show that coalitions are most likely to reduce affective distance when participating parties are ideologically distant and when the signals are still recent. Moreover, coalitions have a system-wide impact beyond the specific parties involved. We discuss the implications for the role of political elites in shaping affective polarization.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Government
- External organisation(s)
- University of Amsterdam (UvA)
- Journal
- Political Studies
- ISSN
- 0032-3217
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217241300993
- Publication date
- 2024
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 506014 Comparative politics
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Sociology and Political Science
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/0278c977-96b3-4b0f-ad6b-11e5406ee729