Suchergebnisse

Studien zu "Size and Democracy" argumentieren, dass für kleinere politische Einheiten eine höhere Wahlbeteiligung zu erwarten ist. Empirische Tests belegen diese Annahme in weiten Teilen. Neuere, komplexere Analysen, die Individual- und Kontextdaten integrieren, kommen aber für die Schweiz, Norwegen, Dänemark und die Niederlande zu nicht eindeutigen Ergebnissen. Um den Zusammenhang neu zu bewerten, greift die vorliegende gepoolte Zeitreihenanalyse auf sieben Kommunalwahlen in allen Gemeinden des österreichischen Bundeslandes Salzburgs (ohne die Stadt Salzburg) zwischen 1979 und 2009 zurück. Die vorliegende Mehrebenenanalyse (nicht-hierarchisches cross-classified Modell), welches Kontexteffekte berücksichtigt, liefert neue Evidenz: Die Größe der Gemeinde beeinflusst die Wahlbeteiligung in Gemeinden in hohem Ausmaß negativ. Dabei kann vor allem die Wechselwirkung mit dem Grad gesellschaftlicher Fraktionalisierung als ausschlaggebend angesehen werden. ; Studies on "size and democracy" argue that smaller political units should exhibit higher voter turnout rates. Empirical tests largely confirm this assumption. In contrast, more complex analyses that integrate individual and contextual data arrive at inconclusive results with regard to Switzerland, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands. In order to reevaluate the relationship between municipality size and turnout, this article uses a pooled time series analysis to study seven local elections in all municipalities of the Austrian state of Salzburg (excluding the city of Salzburg) between 1979 and 2009. The multi-level analysis (non-hierarchical cross-classified model) that accounts for context effects provides new evidence that the size of the municipality has a negative impact on turnout rates. Above all, the interaction between the size of the municipalities and the degree of societal fractionalization appears to be a decisive factor. ; Reinhard Heinisch, Armin Mühlböck

Die vorliegende Untersuchung behandelt die mikroregionale Wirtschaftspolitik in peripheren Lagen (ländlicher Raum) und beschäftigt sich in diesem Zusammenhang mit dem Standortfaktor "Qualifikation". Für die Bewertung und Gestaltung des Standortfaktors "Qualifikation" wird das Instrument der arbeitsmarktpolitischen Qualifizierungsbilanz anhand eines Fallbeispiels (Mikroregion Oberpinzgau im Bezirk Zell am See, Salzburg) entwickelt und getestet. Ausgehend von der erarbeiteten Qualifizierungsbilanz werden konkrete innovative Maßnahmen zur Optimierung der mikroregionalen Qualifikationsstruktur und damit der Standortentwicklung abgeleitet. Aufgrund der herausragenden Bedeutung des Bereichs Lehre im Oberpinzgau steht dieser Bereich im Mittelpunkt. Empirisch werden Qualifikationsdefizite und Qualifikationspotenziale ermittelt, um neue Wege der mikroregionalen Standortentwicklung zu ermöglichen. (ICE2)

AbstractDoes the expectation of a close race drive more people to vote? Despite increasingly intensified electoral competition and hardened fronts at all political levels over the last decades, a decline in turnout rates can be observed representing a puzzling development. Though there are anomalies, previous studies show a clear trend towards a positive association between a close race and an increase in turnout. Based on the idea of the "rational choice" theory, the prospect of a close or undecided race increases the subjective weight of the individual vote, which drives more voters to the ballot box. In fact, 'expected Closeness' is one of the most frequently tested independent variables in voter turnout research. However, the factor is only measured ex-post in most cases. Such measurements use the results of the actual election to infer the 'Closeness' of the race. However, these measurement methods are less valid because they do not measure 'Closeness' in the decisive period before the election takes place. We want to contribute a test of the effect by analysing all runoff elections in Austrian direct mayoral elections since 1991 as they allow for ex-ante measurement. The first ballots and the runoffs are temporally close. Thus, the first vote results serve as a direct indicator of the 'expected Closeness' in the second round of voting. The electorate changes, if at all, only insignificantly between the ballots. In addition, socio-economic factors influencing voter turnout can be kept constant, increasing the validity of the test. The results of this study underline the positive and independent effect of 'Closeness' on the turnout of the election. The closer a mayoral race in Austria is in the first round, the higher is the turnout in the following runoff elections. The study also presents the independent and strong effects of socioeconomic factors on turnout. Our research not only provides a valid test of the effect of 'expected Closeness' on voter turnout, it also constitutes pioneering work in complete data collection on all direct mayoral elections in Austria.

Which factors contribute to the electoral success of Populist Radical Right Parties (PRRPs)? We empirically investigate the relationship between the Austrian Freedom Party/FP (Freiheitliche Partei Österreich/FPÖ)'s electoral shares and the degree of population's socioeconomic polarization based on data for six regional and national elections and 118 municipalities in the state of Salzburg. Regional elections offer an excellent setting for conducting a thorough test of the argument that relative deprivation provides fertile ground for PRRPs. Our longitudinal study provides clear evidence that the more polarized the socio-economic structure in Salzburg's municipalities, the higher the share of FP supporters. This relationship holds over time and across types of elections: regional elections ('Landtagswahlen') and national elections ('Nationalratswahlen').

Socioeconomic resources are important predictors of electoral participation, yet to understand their impact, we argue it is essential to examine the interaction of income dissatisfaction (egocentric dimension) with someone's view of societal conditions (sociotropic dimension). Drawing on pooled national election surveys, we find that deprivation indeed depresses voting, but more importantly also that there is significant variation among those who experience economic difficulties: those who disconnect their personal misfortune from broader grievances are significantly more likely to abstain (Relative Power Hypothesis), while embedding one's situation in a context of societal disparities leads to a desire for change and participation levels nearly as high as among the better off (Conflict Hypothesis). Our findings speak to inequality and turnout research but also have direct political implications, as it seems that responsiveness to campaigns focused on distributional injustices hinges on voters' perception of themselves in relation to society.

Socioeconomic resources are important predictors of electoral participation, yet to understand their impact, we argue it is essential to examine the interaction of income dissatisfaction (egocentric dimension) with someone's view of societal conditions (sociotropic dimension). Drawing on pooled national election surveys, we find that deprivation indeed depresses voting, but more importantly also that there is significant variation among those who experience economic difficulties: those who disconnect their personal misfortune from broader grievances are significantly more likely to abstain (Relative Power Hypothesis), while embedding one's situation in a context of societal disparities leads to a desire for change and participation levels nearly as high as among the better off (Conflict Hypothesis). Our findings speak to inequality and turnout research but also have direct political implications, as it seems that responsiveness to campaigns focused on distributional injustices hinges on voters' perception of themselves in relation to society. ; Version of record

Do municipal mergers affect the democratic development at the local level? Numerous countries initiated municipal reforms in order to increase efficiency, administrative quality, and cost savings. Existing research focuses on the effect on local economic efficiency or political efficacy. However, few studies show effect of mergers on local democracy clearly. With this gap in mind, we focus on the recent municipal mergers in the Austrian State of Styria. The reform presents a natural experimental setting, which allows for a controlled test of the effect of 'size on voter turnout. We contend that, as a consequence of the merger, individual votes lose weight. We expect turnout in merged municipals to decrease compared to the elections prior to the merger. We use aggregate data from the 2010 and 2015 municipal elections in Styria and employ regression models to test our argument empirically. The results support our argument. ; (VLID)3768976