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.
Publications
Runoff Comebacks in Comparative Perspective: Two-Round Presidential Election Systems
- Author(s)
- Matthew Bergman
- Abstract
In many countries, the president of the republic is directly elected through popular vote. Most such nations have an electoral system that provides for a double-round of voting. Often termed a two-round system, such elections have a second turn if no candidate obtains an absolute majority in the first round. This article presents an original dataset covering all the presidential and the
semipresidential regimes (73 countries) that have adopted two-round system along with the results of 423 elections for both the first and second round and whether the result was determined in the first round, whether the plurality winner of the first round was victorious in the second round, or whether there was a second round ‘comeback’ – when the runner-up of the first round was
victorious in the second. A variety of exploratory hypotheses are presented that try to predict the likelihood of a second round or a comeback. Few are validated. The presence of an incumbent and a qualified method of presidential selection increases the probability of a second round occurring while a greater number of candidates and greater electoral volatility make it less likely. We find that no variables related to political institutions, presidential resources, or the structure of the first round predictive of a second round comeback. We make the dataset public so that future scholars can continue this form of investigation- Organisation(s)
- Department of Government
- Journal
- Political Studies Review
- Volume
- 21
- Pages
- 608-624
- No. of pages
- 17
- ISSN
- 1478-9299
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221132441
- Publication date
- 10-2022
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 506012 Political systems
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Political Science and International Relations, Sociology and Political Science
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/043f7fa7-b2ff-4788-87f0-ef3e0268a9cc