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
Participation in the administration of elections and perceptions of electoral integrity
- Author(s)
- Julia Partheymüller, Wolfgang C. Müller, Armin Rabitsch, Michael Lidauer, Paul Grohma
- Abstract
In recent years, election administration has become a subject of intensified debates, raising questions of how to organize elections to ensure electoral integrity. One question concerns who should serve as members of polling station boards, administer election day proceedings, and participate in the vote count. Different models co-exist in modern democracies, with some countries – among them Austria – actively involving the political parties in the election administration. Against this background, this paper examines perceptions of electoral integrity among Austrian poll workers and citizens using data from an original survey of poll workers and survey data of the voting population. The results show that poll workers have greater confidence in the election administration than regular voters but are equally or more skeptical regarding other aspects of electoral integrity. Also, their partisan background shapes perceptions of electoral integrity. To conclude, we discuss the benefits and limitations of the ‘party model’ for poll worker recruitment.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Government
- External organisation(s)
- Verein wahlbeobachtung.org
- Journal
- Electoral Studies
- Volume
- 77
- No. of pages
- 16
- ISSN
- 0261-3794
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2022.102474
- Publication date
- 06-2022
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 506001 General theory of the state, 504007 Empirical social research
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Political Science and International Relations
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/b8bbdfc5-a0c0-4f2f-ba0e-e68f0320b24f