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
COVID-19 und die normale Grippe: Eine verharmlosende Gleichsetzung
- Author(s)
- Jakob-Moritz Eberl, Noelle Sophie Lebernegg, Julia Partheymüller
- Abstract
Knapp ein Jahr nach Beginn der Corona-Pandemie hat es laut dem BMSGPK in Österreich etwa 8.000 Todesfälle im Zusammenhang mit COVID-19 gegeben. Die Statistik Austria berichtet zudem, dass in 2020, dem ersten Pandemie-Jahr, 10,9 Prozent mehr Menschen gestorben sind, als im Durchschnitt der vorangegangenen fünf Jahre. Dennoch beschreibt die Journalistin und Autorin Ingrid Brodnig in ihrem neuen Buch zu Verschwörungsmythen, dass verharmlosende Gleichsetzungen wie “das Coronavirus sei halb so wild, denn es sei ja wie eine Grippe” (S. 82) immer wieder zu hören seien. Zu diesem Vergleich wurden auch Teilnehmer*innen des Austrian Corona Panel Projects (ACPP) über die letzten Monate wiederholt befragt. Speziell wurden sie dabei gebeten, anzugeben, inwiefern ihrer Ansicht nach die folgende Aussage zutrifft oder nicht zutrifft: “Das Coronavirus ist gefährlicher als die normale Grippe.”
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Communication, Department of Government
- Publication date
- 02-2021
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 501021 Social psychology, 504007 Empirical social research
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/548697a7-2716-48ac-b30d-65ed5e99fdf1