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
Voting for the Populist Radical-Right in Austria and Germany: A Comparative Analysis
- Author(s)
- Julia Partheymüller, Stefanie Walter
- Abstract
Abstract: One of the most notable trends in recent European elections has been the electoral success of populist radical-right parties. Leveraging on the temporal proximity of the 2017 elections in Germany and Austria and using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) Module 5, this study conducts a comparative analysis of demand- and supply-side factors influencing populist radical-right voting in these two countries. Our findings underscore the consistent significance of anti-immigrant and populist attitudes, along with ideological proximity, in motivating support for such parties. The impact of economic pessimism, however, varies across contexts. Our analysis also reveals that the higher prevalence of populist radical-right support in Austria is predominantly tied to its perception as less radical and closer to voters, rather than differences in the levels of reactionary tendencies between the two countries. Overall, this research contributes to the ongoing debates on the normalization of the populist radical-right and provides insights regarding practical strategies to address the populist challenge.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Government
- External organisation(s)
- Technische Universität München
- Pages
- 533-558
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.5771/9783748915553-533
- Publication date
- 2023
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 504007 Empirical social research, 506012 Political systems, 506014 Comparative politics
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/17718b1e-f02e-4d9d-a1e0-2fe6d865e2f0