Methodologies and Methods in Political Science
About
We work on the dissemination and improvement of methods in political science. The aim is to identify and develop methods that answer political science questions as efficiently, effectively and transparently as possible. The team is primarily concerned with the quantitative collection and analysis of large amounts of data.
The research process usually involves three steps: data collection, information gathering and descriptive and inferential data analysis. Our agenda is based on these three phases:
Data collection
The Data volume on the web has already exceeded the amount of data of all libraries in the world in 2000 and is growing rapidly. As researchers, we try to take advantage of this and obtain a large part of our data through so-called "web scraping". To do this, we create technologies that enable the targeted downloading of data from the internet.
Information Retrieval
Since about 80 percent of the information on the internet is text, computer-assisted text analysis plays an important role in our research process. We scale texts according to certain dimensions (political ideology, progress versus stagnation in negotiations, etc.), measure quotations and plagiarism between texts and try to understand latent concepts in texts. All this allows us to extract information relevant to answering our questions from large unstructured datasets.
Data analysis
The team works with various statistical methods to analyse the data descriptively and inferentially. In addition to classical methods such as regression analyses, we also deal with network analyses. The coexistence of people and societies functions in networks. Special methods allow us to explore the dynamics in these networks.
Members
Current Projects
Projects, scholarships and other third-party funds
Research Projects
Licht, Hauke: GAPED. Group Appeals in Parliamentary and Electoral Debates.
Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF), WEAVE
2026-02-01 - 2029-01-31- Licht, Hauke: GROUPY. GROUPY: Zero-shot multitask models for analyzing group-based rhetoric in political texts from synthetic labeled data.
Tiroler Nachwuchsforscher*innenförderung (TNF)
2026-01-01 - 2027-06-06 - Steinmayr, Andreas; Duell, Dominik: Arbeitsmarktintegration von Geflüchteten aus der Ukraine mit besonderem Schwerpunkt auf Frauen.
Arbeitsmarktservice (AMS)
2023-11-15 - 2024-05-31 - Wierer-Lechner, Lisa Maria: TEXNET. Policy-diffusion across international institutions: A text-network approach.
Universität Innsbruck - Vizerektorat für Forschung, Nachwuchsfördermittel aus der Nachwuchsförderung der LFU
2020-03-01 - 2025-03-31
Current Publications
Publications
Contributions to Books / Journals
Journal Article (Original Paper)
- Bastiaens, Ida; Lechner, Lisa; Evgeny Postnikov, Evgeny (2025): Non-trade issues in preferential trade agreements and global value chains.
In: Review of International Political Economy 32/2, pp. 353 - 380. (DOI) (Web link) - Lechner, Lisa; Yang, Joonseok (2025): Beyond coercion: Weaker states' domestic political motivations for political clauses in preferential trade agreements.
In: World Economy 48/1, pp. 3 - 26. (DOI) (Web link) 
West, Emily; Duell, Dominik (2025): How Political Representation Empowers Women.
In: Political Behavior 47, pp. 217 - 240. (DOI) (Web link)- Arel-Bundock, Vincent; Lechner, Lisa (2024): The Power of Boilerplate: Bilateralism, Plurilateralism, and the International Tax System.
In: International Interactions 50/4, pp. 685 - 702. (DOI) (Web link) - Duell, Dominik; Kaftan, Lea; Proksch, Sven-Oliver; Slapin, Jonathan; Wratil, Christopher (2024): The rhyme and reason of rebel support: exploring European voters’ attitudes toward dissident MPs.
In: Political Science Research and Methods 12/2, pp. 301 - 317. (DOI) - Duell, Dominik; Mengel, Friederike; Mohlin, Eric; Weidenholzer, Simon (2024): Cooperation through collective punishment and participation.
In: Political Science Research and Methods 12/3, pp. 494 - 520. (Full-text) (DOI) (Web link) - Gerver, Mollie; Simon, Miranda; Lown, Patrick; Duell, Dominik (2024): The Immigration Discrimination Dilemma.
In: Ethics & Global Politics 17/2-3, pp. 27 - 50. (DOI) (Web link) - Duell, Dominik; Kaftan, Lea; Proksch, Sven-Oliver; Slapin, Jonathan; Wratil, Christopher (2023): Communicating the Rift: Voter Perceptions of Intra-Party Dissent in Parliaments.
In: Journal of Politics 85/1, pp. 76 - 91. (DOI) (Web link) - Dür, Andreas; Lechner, Lisa (2023): Winners and Losers From Trade Agreements: Stock Market Reactions to TPP and TTIP.
In: Politics and Governance 11/4, pp. 200 - 211. (DOI) (Web link) - Gerver, Mollie; Lown, Patrick; Duell, Dominik (2023): Proportional Immigration Enforcement.
In: Journal of Politics 85/3, pp. 949 - 968. (DOI) (Web link)
Journal Article (Other)
- Steinmayr, Andreas; Duell, Dominik; Wett, Valentin (2024): Herausforderungen und Chancen der Arbeitsmarktintegration ukrainischer Vertriebener in Österreich.
In: ifo-Schnelldienst 77/10, pp. 31 - 35. (Web link)
Book Chapter (Original Paper)
- Senn, Martin; Eder, Franz; Duell, Dominik (2024): Das Austrian Foreign Policy Panel Project (AFP3): Wissen und Einstellungen der österreichischen Bevölkerung zu Außen und Weltpolitik.
In: Khol, Andreas; Karner, Stefan; Sobotka, Wolfgang; Rausch-Amon, Bettina; Ofner, Günther (Hg.): Österreichisches Jahrbuch für Politik 2023. Wien [u.a.]: Böhlau., ISBN 978-3-205-21955-2, pp. 529 - 543. (DOI) (Web link) - Gerver, Mollie; Lown, Patrick; Duell, Dominik (2023): Experimental Immigration Ethics.
In: Lindauer, Matthew: Advances in Experimental Political Philosophy. London [u.a.]: Bloomsbury Publishing., ISBN 9781350254251, pp. 187 - 214. (Web link)
Other Publications
Electronic Publication (Preprint)
You can find more publications here: https://lfuonline.uibk.ac.at/public/pk115_web.frame