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

Swaying Citizen Support for EU Membership

Author(s)
Nikoleta Yordanova, Roni Lehrer, Moritz Osnabrügge, Sander Renes, Mariyana Angelova
Abstract

The 2016 Brexit referendum vote to leave the EU raised concerns about other countries following suit. This paper examines how arguments about EU membership related to economic, cultural, political, and security and peace issues could influence citizens vote in EU membership referendums. Our two-wave survey experiment on a random sample of the German population and difference-in-differences analysis revealed that only fears of being outvoted in EU decision-making swayed German citizens attitudes about EU membership, in particular of those with weaker EU support, little EU knowledge and low political engagement. Sovereignty loss concerns can be powerful drivers of Euroscepticism even in a country with vast influence over EU decisions. The limited public acceptance of majoritarian EU decision-making makes the feasibility of an ever closer union questionable.

Organisation(s)
Department of Government
External organisation(s)
Erasmus University Rotterdam, Leiden University, London School of Economics and Political Science, Universität Mannheim
Journal
European Union Politics
Volume
21
Pages
429-450
No. of pages
53
ISSN
1465-1165
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1465116520923735
Publication date
10-2019
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
506004 European integration, 506014 Comparative politics
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/1e4a2e5d-d389-45d8-a5c9-81d19f0449f0