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

AUTNES Pre- and Post Panel Study 2013 (SUF edition)

Author(s)
Sylvia Kritzinger, Eva Zeglovits, Julian Aichholzer, Christian Glantschnigg, Konstantin Glinitzer, David Johann, Kathrin Thomas, Markus Wagner
Abstract

This dataset contains political preferences of Austrian citizens eligible to vote at the national parliamentary election on 29.9.2013 (age 16 and older). The pre-election survey was conducted in the period 5.11.2012 – 30.6.2013 through personal interviews (CAPI); people were then re-interviewed after the election in the period 30.9. – 2.12.2013 by telephone (CATI). 3266 respondents were selected based on a proportionally stratified probability sample, and 1504 respondents were re-interviewed after the election. Important variables are, among others, political interest; the most important political issues concerning the upcoming national electoral campaign and which party is most qualified to deal with them; party closeness; party preferences; party identification; self- and party-placements on a left-right scale; evaluation of candidates; campaign perception; media consumption; political knowledge; and preferences concerning the EU and other issues such as migration and asylum, the financial crisis, the environment, or nuclear energy. Additional variables capture demographics, weights, and interview ratings

Organisation(s)
Department of Government, Department of Sociology
DOI
https://doi.org/10.11587/LBAHIZ
Publication date
04-2020
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
506012 Political systems, 508020 Political communication
Keywords
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/ebeb3149-3d5e-43ee-beec-4b9045ac85c1