The Austrian experience shows that there is little risk and much to gain from giving 16-year-olds the vote

Sadiq Khan recently called for the voting age to be lowered to 16 in the UK. Markus Wagner and Eva Zeglovits examine arguments for and against, arguing that it is a reform that carries few dangers and can motivate schools to reach out to and motivate young people

Although Austria’s grand coalition will continue, the dominance of the country’s two major parties may be nearing its end

Austria held parliamentary elections on 29 September. Sylvia Kritzinger and Eva Zeglovits assess the election results, which saw the country’s two major parties, the SPÖ and ÖVP, maintain a narrow majority. They write that while the results mean the incumbent grand coalition will likely continue, the real story is the growing vote share for smaller parties which may lead to a ‘political earthquake’ in future elections

Survey questions about party competence: Insights from cognitive interviews

AbstractVoter assessments of party competence have become a key explanation of electoral decision-making. However, there are at least three important aspects to understanding responses to questions on issue-specific party competence: comprehension difficulties; a lack of well-formed attitudes and relevant information; and the use of response heuristics. We used 20 cognitive interviews carried out in Austria in 2011 to test competence questions. The interviews show us how respondents explain their responses. We find evidence that many people (1) may hold only weak opinions and have little information on issue-specific party competence and (2) may make use of distinct but related concepts, particularly salience and position, when answering questions about competence. We provide recommendations for researchers and survey designers based on our findings

Was Austria’s presidential election really a vote against populism?

Austria’s presidential election on 4 December saw a surprisingly large victory for Alexander Van der Bellen over Norbert Hofer, the candidate of the populist right-wing FPÖ. However, as Eva Zeglovits, Hubert Sickinger and Jakob-Moritz Eberl write, the level of support received by Hofer suggests the FPÖ could nevertheless be well placed to win the next federal elections

Austria election preview: Sebastian Kurz and the rise of the Austrian 'anti-party'

Austria goes to the polls on 15 October, with the centre-right ÖVP, led by 31-year-old Sebastian Kurz, currently ahead in the polls. Jakob-Moritz Eberl, Eva Zeglovits and Hubert Sickinger provide a comprehensive preview of the vote, writing that although polling is consistent with the idea the ÖVP and Kurz are the probable election winners, a noteworthy number of voters are still undecided. Kurz becoming the next chancellor is thus not as set in stone as Angela Merkel’s win in Germany was

Votes at 16: what the UK can learn from Austria, Norway and the Crown dependencies

Implementing the proposal in Ed Miliband’s party conference speech to lower the voting age would make Britain one of only a few countries to allow 16 year olds to vote. In this post, Democratic Audit asks leading democracy experts to share findings from nations that have introduced this change, focusing especially on Austria, Norway and, from closer to home, a number of the UK’s Crown dependencies

Aufstieg und Fall der FPÖ aus der Perspektive der Empirischen Wahlforschung: eine Langzeitanalyse (1986-2004)

'Der Aufstieg der FPÖ in den 1980er und 1990er Jahren gelang ihr als Oppositionspartei während der Zeit der großen Koalition. Sie gewann ihre Stimmen im gleichen Ausmaß von SPÖ und ÖVP. Während die ÖVP vorwiegend Ende der 1980er Jahre 'zur Ader gelassen' wurde, kam die Zeit der starken SPÖ-Verluste in den 1990er Jahren. Der Abstieg der FPÖ begann unmittelbar nach ihrem Eintritt in die Bundesregierung bei verschiedenen Landtagswahlen in den Jahren 2000 bis 2004 - nur die Landtagswahl in Kärnten bildet hier eine Ausnahme. Bei der Nationalratswahl 2002 erfolgte der größte Wählerstrom in der österreichischen Wahlgeschichte von der FPÖ zur ÖVP. Am Tag der Nationalratswahl spiegelten sich in den Wahlmotiven dieser WählerInnen vor allem die Enttäuschung über die FPÖ sowie die Zufriedenheit mit der Regierungsarbeit des Kabinetts Schüssel I wider. Die FPÖ-ÖVP-Abwanderer teilen mit den anderen ÖVP-WählerInnen eine ähnliche Selbsteinstufung in der 'Mitte' des politischen Links-Rechts-Kontinuums sowie eine distanzierte Haltung gegenüber der Gewerkschaft. Obwohl die größten SkeptikerInnen gegenüber AusländerInnen und JüdInnen nach wie vor die FPÖ wählen, so haben die FPÖ-ÖVP-Abwanderer dennoch eine ablehnendere Haltung gegenüber diesen beiden Gruppen als die übrigen ÖVP-WählerInnen. Ein wichtiges Ergebnis der Analyse ist, dass die Links-Rechts-Selbsteinstufung sowie die Nähe zu verschiedenen Weltanschauungen in den letzten Jahren teilweise starken Veränderungen unterlegen sind. Der Regierungswechsel und andere politische Entwicklungen scheinen in diesem Zusammenhang zu einer Bedeutungsverschiebung zentraler politischer Begriffe geführt zu haben.' (Autorenreferat)'In the 1980s and 1990s, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) was rather successful in opposing the grand coalition. The FPÖ gained its voters to the same extent from the Socialdemocratic Party (SPÖ) and the People's Party (ÖVP). Whereas the ÖVP lost most of their voters to the FPÖ in the late 1980s, the SPÖ faced larger voter losses in the 1990s. With the FPÖ's entrance into federal government, however, its descent began - which found its first expression in the regional elections in 2000 and has continued up to now (with the exception of Carinthia). The federal elections in 2002 resulted in the largest voter transition Austria has ever experienced with 633.000 people switching from FPÖ to ÖVP. The voting motives of voters reflect disappointment with the FPÖ as well as satisfaction with the government. These drifters share a similar self classification with other ÖVP voters in the 'center' of the political left-right continuum as well as a critical attitude towards the trade unions. Although the most confirmed sceptics towards foreigners and Jews still vote for the FPÖ, FPÖ-ÖVP drifters are nevertheless more depreciative than the other ÖVP voters. An important result of the analysis is that the left-right self classification as well as the closeness to different political orientations have been subject to strong alterations in recent years. The change of government and other political developments have led to a shift in the meaning of essential political terms.' (author's abstract

Estimating Sensitive Behavior: The ICT and High-Incidence Electoral Behavior

Funding This work is supported by the Austrian National Election Study, a National Research Network sponsored by the Austrian Science Fund (S10902-G11). Acknowledgments The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback and Graeme Blair and Kosuke Imai for their helpful support.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The higher education impact agenda, scientific realism and policy change: the case of electoral integrity in Britain

Pressures have increasingly been put upon social scientists to prove their economic, cultural and social value through ‘impact agendas’ in higher education. There has been little conceptual and empirical discussion of the challenges involved in achieving impact and the dangers of evaluating it, however. This article argues that a critical realist approach to social science can help to identify some of these key challenges and the institutional incompatibilities between impact regimes and university research in free societies. These incompatibilities are brought out through an autobiographical ‘insider-account’ of trying to achieve impact in the field of electoral integrity in Britain. The article argues that there is a more complex relationship between research and the real world which means that the nature of knowledge might change as it becomes known by reflexive agents. Secondly, the researchers are joined into social relations with a variety of actors, including those who might be the object of study in their research. Researchers are often weakly positioned in these relations. Some forms of impact, such as achieving policy change, are therefore exceptionally difficult as they are dependent on other actors. Strategies for trying to achieve impact are drawn out such as collaborating with civil society groups and parliamentarians to lobby for policy change