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 won the election? Explaining news coverage of election results in multi‐party systems
- Author(s)
- Katjana Gattermann, Thomas Meyer, Katharina Wurzer
- Abstract
When reporting on election results, the media declare parties as election ‘winners’ or ‘losers’, which has important consequences for voter perceptions and government formation. This article investigates news coverage of parties’ electoral performance in proportional representation systems, in which election results are often less clear-cut compared to majoritarian systems. It tests the extent to which news coverage of parties’ electoral performance is based on objective measures or on party ideology. Its focus on the aftermath of the 2019 European Parliament election allows holding the electoral context constant across the 16 countries under study. Results from a Heckman selection model show that alongside a party's status as plurality winner and changes in electoral support, parties with radical socio-cultural policy positions are both more likely to be covered and declared election winners in the news. These results have important implications for citizens’ attitudes and perceived party legitimacy in democratic societies.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Government
- External organisation(s)
- University of Amsterdam (UvA), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
- Journal
- European Journal of Political Research
- Volume
- 61
- Pages
- 857-877
- No. of pages
- 21
- ISSN
- 0304-4130
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12498
- Publication date
- 11-2022
- 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/63aae165-bb54-4668-a8c8-43bf941fcdda