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
The Rise of Populism in Modern Democracies
- Author(s)
- Thomas Meyer, Markus Wagner
- Abstract
This chapter examines the causes of the rise of populism and its consequences for political representation in modern democracies: Why have populist parties gained ground in so many liberal democracies? And how does their emergence and continuing success affect the way political representation works in these systems? We aim to provide answers to these questions by reviewing the extensive (and growing) literature on populism. In so doing, we identify findings where there is broad consensus in the scientific debate so far, but also controversies that have not been resolved yet. We conclude with a summary of our analysis and some reflections about future research on populism.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Government
- External organisation(s)
- Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
- Pages
- 563-582
- No. of pages
- 20
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198825081.013.29
- Publication date
- 2020
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 506014 Comparative politics
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Social Sciences
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/475c5932-8845-4297-b946-9d406918c1c8