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
Voters and the IMF: Experimental Evidence from European Crisis Countries
- Author(s)
- Evelyne Hübscher, Thomas Sattler, Markus Wagner
- Abstract
IMF interventions are often associated with rising political discontent in
countries where the Fund intervenes. Studies examining this relationship,
however, face the challenge of disentangling the impact of the IMF from the
impact of the crisis that triggered the intervention. To address this challenge,
we conduct survey experiments in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain and
directly assess how voters evaluate the costs and benefits of an IMF intervention. We find that voters believe that the crisis will more likely be solved
when the IMF intervenes, but they are also critical of the corresponding loss of
national sovereignty. Because the former consideration, on average, dominates their assessment, IMF interventions increase the support of voters for
unpopular economic policies. Nonetheless, cross-country differences suggest
that continued public support for intervention hinges on the IMF’s ability to
deliver on its promise to help resolve the crisis.- Organisation(s)
- Department of Government
- External organisation(s)
- Université de Genève, Central European University Vienna
- Journal
- Comparative Political Studies
- Volume
- 57
- Pages
- 1870-1901
- No. of pages
- 32
- ISSN
- 0010-4140
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140231204229
- Publication date
- 09-2024
- 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/ac4385a2-4786-4750-b068-b9ef7a4393e5