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

Who's fit for the job? Allocating ministerial portfolios to outsiders and experts

Author(s)
Matthias Kaltenegger, Laurenz Ennser-Jedenastik
Abstract

Why do parties appoint outsiders and experts to ministerial positions? Extant research offers explanations based on institutional arrangements and external shocks (e.g. political or economic crises). We go beyond such system-level variables to argue that the characteristics of ministerial appointees are a function of the portfolio they are being appointed to. Drawing on theories of political delegation, we argue that outsider and expert appointments to ministerial office are affected by a portfolio's policy jurisdiction, its financial resources and appointment powers, and the partisan leanings of the ministerial bureaucracy. We test these arguments on all appointments of senior and junior ministers in Austria between 1945 and 2020. The analysis shows that outsiders are more likely to be appointed to ministries with greater party support in the bureaucracy, while experts are more likely appointed to portfolios dealing with high-salience issues.

Organisation(s)
Department of Government
Journal
European Political Science Review
Volume
14
Pages
618-634
No. of pages
17
ISSN
1755-7739
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755773922000285
Publication date
07-2022
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
506014 Comparative politics
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Political Science and International Relations, Sociology and Political Science
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/10e3cabd-b0f9-4449-a323-a5057e357c87