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
Austria: Phasing-out Grand Coalition Government
- Author(s)
- Wolfgang C. Müller
- Abstract
Grand coalition government of the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP and the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) had been the hallmark of post-war Austria but the historic ‘grand coalition’ formula seems exhausted. The rationale for maintaining this cooperation vanished, electoral changes undermined the former duopoly of these parties, and party system changes brought new players into the game. Yet at the government level alternatives involving the FPÖ have proved instable as in each case an FPÖ event brought down the government or prevented its renewal. The chapter shows how routine formateur-led processes of coalition formation resulting in anticipated outcomes contrast with a few instances which significantly deviate. Coalition governance is characterized by the use of an elaborated set of rules and instruments and great continuity over time and different types of coalition. Accordingly, the underlying principle of coalition politics has been the ‘coalition compromise’ model (Martin & Vanberg), with government policies to be largely agreed between the coalition partners. In practice, ministerial discretion tends to shift policy government policy output towards the model of ‘constrained ministerial government’ (Dragu & Laver). Most coalitions terminated early because of inter-party conflict.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Government
- Pages
- 41-80
- No. of pages
- 40
- Publication date
- 11-2020
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 506014 Comparative politics
- Keywords
- Sustainable Development Goals
- SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/7ec2cd16-b634-446b-83cc-9fc8ef05de8f