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

HOW ROBUST ARE COMPLIANCE FINDINGS? A RESEARCH SYNTHESIS

Author(s)
Mariyana Angelova, Tanja Dannwolf, Thomas König
Abstract

This study presents a synthesis of quantitative and qualitative research on compliance with EU directives. We identify and code 12 theoretical arguments tested in 37 published compliance studies and evaluate the robustness and representativeness of their findings. Our synthesis reveals robust findings for the ‘goodness-of-fit’ and ‘institutional decision-making’ arguments, while results on ‘actors’ policy preferences' and ‘administrative efficiency’ remain ambiguous. A closer examination of the studies' research design suggests policy and country selection effects. Specifically, most studies focus on environmental and social policies and rarely include complying Scandinavian states and non-complying Southern states. We therefore recommend a cautious interpretation of existing compliance findings and, for future compliance research, a more careful selection of countries and policy fields.

Organisation(s)
Department of Government
External organisation(s)
Universität Mannheim, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern
Journal
Journal of European Public Policy
Volume
19
Pages
1269
No. of pages
1291
ISSN
1350-1763
Publication date
07-2012
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
506004 European integration, 506014 Comparative politics
Keywords
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/c7783f0e-92b9-4ebf-bbef-762d55d429b8