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
Introducing the Party-interest group relationships in contemporary democracies datasets
- Author(s)
- Elin Haugsgjerd Allern, Vibeke Wøien Hansen, Lise Rødland, Maiken Røed, Heike Klüver, Cal Le Gall, David Marshall, Simon Otjes, Thomas Poguntke, Anne Rasmussen, Sabine Saurugger, Christopher Witko
- Abstract
Few existing datasets on parties and interest groups include data from both sides and a wide variety of interest groups and parties. We contribute to filling this gap by making several interconnected new datasets publicly available. The Party-Interest Group Relationships in Contemporary Democracies (PAIRDEM) datasets include cross-national data from three different surveys of (1) central party organizations, (2) legislative party groups, and (3) interest groups. A fourth dataset based on coding of party statutes and party finance data was established together with the Political Party Database The datasets contain novel indicators on party-group relationships in up to 21 mature democracies. In this research note, we first present the main content of the datasets and the research design. Second, we present descriptive statistics documenting the extent of organizational ties between parties and groups in contemporary democracies. Third, we illustrate more advanced usage through a simple application.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Government
- External organisation(s)
- University of Oslo, Lund University, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Université catholique de Louvain, University of Reading, Leiden University, University of Groningen, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, University of Copenhagen, University of Bergen (UiB), Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Pennsylvania State University
- Journal
- Party Politics
- Volume
- 29
- Pages
- 394-403
- No. of pages
- 10
- ISSN
- 1354-0688
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688221075591
- Publication date
- 02-2022
- 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/7e290c9e-e494-4b3f-9a2c-06063eefeac4