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 likes to vote by mail?
- Author(s)
- Carolina Plescia, Semra Sevi, Andre Blais
- Abstract
Interest in voting by mail has increased during the coronavirus as a way to avoid in person contact. In this study, we conducted a survey in February 2020 in the United States to examine citizen preferences to cast their ballot at a polling station, over the internet, or by mail. By including simultaneously internet and mail as alternative voting options to the polling station we aim to disentangle convenience (both alternative options are presumably more convenient) from novelty (internet is more novel than mail and polling station voting). We find that the person who likes voting by mail the most is an older White-American with little interest in politics; and the person who likes voting by mail the least is a younger African-American or Latino with high interest in politics. All in all, the biggest cleavage in citizens' preferences about how to vote is generational, not ideological.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Government
- External organisation(s)
- University of Montreal
- Journal
- American Politics Research
- Volume
- 49
- Pages
- 381-385
- No. of pages
- 5
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X211005684
- Publication date
- 07-2021
- 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/42ad06b2-101c-4d75-ac6c-2f74ced5a6e8