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
Facets of Personality and “Ideological Asymmetries”
- Author(s)
- Julian Aichholzer, Daniel Danner, Beatrice Rammstedt
- Abstract
How do individual personality traits shape political leanings or “ideological asymmetries”? The present study investigates the association between political preferences, global personality domains and specific personality facets. We measured personality domains and facets in a heterogeneous German sample using the 60-item Big Five Inventory-2 and used bi-factor structural equation models to investigate associations with attitudes and party support. Our results demonstrate the unique explanatory power of personality facets. In particular, specific facets of Open-Mindedness and Agreeableness exhibited unique relationships with left-wing/liberal attitudes and party preferences, whereas supporters of (far) right-wing parties could be distinguished in overall Conscientiousness. These findings have important implications for our understanding of how individuals’ basic patterns of thoughts and feelings relate to their ideological leanings.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Government
- External organisation(s)
- Hochschule der Bundesagentur für Arbeit (HdBA), GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften
- Journal
- Journal of Research in Personality
- Volume
- 77
- Pages
- 90-100
- No. of pages
- 11
- ISSN
- 0092-6566
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2018.09.010
- Publication date
- 12-2018
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 506012 Political systems, 501004 Differential psychology
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Psychology, Social Psychology
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/f3f77b5f-eda3-4837-9f51-af4612d96b3f