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.
Political Institutions
Institutions play a key role in political systems, as they define the framework conditions for political decisions...
Political Representation
Political representation describes the institutional and social processes and practices that connect citizens and voters to...
Party Competition
Party competition is an essential component of democratic systems and describes the competition between political parties for votes...
Infrastructural Projects
Infrastructural projects are an essential component of scientific research, as they create the basis for long-term data collection...
Political Behaviour
Political behaviour deals with the individual and collective attitudes and actions of citizens in a political context...
Cooperations
Cooperations are a central component of scientific research, as they promote the exchange of knowledge, resources and...
Publications
Communicating the Rift: Voter Perceptions of Intraparty Dissent in Parliaments
- Author(s)
- Dominik Duell, Lea Kaftan, Jonathan Slapin, Sven-Oliver Proksch, Christopher Wratil
- Abstract
Members of Parliament (MPs) who vote against their party can improve their public standing. But how do MPs explain and frame their rebellious behavior to maximize their appeal? And what can party leaders do to mitigate the damage done by intraparty dissent? Using a vignette survey experiment fielded in four European democracies, we study how statements that MPs and party leaders make about rebellion affect voter evaluations of MPs and leaders. We find that MPs benefit from explaining rebellion in terms of their responsiveness to voters, whereas strategies that highlight the importance of the MP’s own personal convictions are only effective with respondents who share the rebel’s opinion. In turn, party leaders fare best if they welcome an MP’s rebellious behavior irrespective of how that MP explains the vote. MP explanations that focus on the substance of a vote and critical responses from party leaders garner substantially less public support.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Government
- External organisation(s)
- Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck, Universität Witten/Herdecke, Universität Zürich (UZH), Universität zu Köln
- Journal
- Journal of Politics
- Volume
- 85
- Pages
- 76-91
- No. of pages
- 16
- ISSN
- 0022-3816
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1086/720645
- Publication date
- 01-2023
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 506014 Comparative politics
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Sociology and Political Science
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/5b144924-2176-4135-a654-7758e05e3940