ABSTRACT
The editors’ stated aim is to examine, by means of a variety of primarily empirical political science approaches, trends in Austrian electoral behavior, to relate these to alterations in the structure, or context of party competition, and to tease out long term trends. Between them, the fifteen chapters contain approximately 100 tables and three dozen diagrams. Peter A. Ulram and Wolfgang C. Muller set the scene with great clarity in their chapter on “Die Ausgangstage fur die Nationalratswahl 1994.” Rainer Nick’s chapter on “Die Wahl vor der Wahl” describes in considerable detail the 1994 candidate recruitment procedures of the five parliamentary parties, noting also how these differed from Land to Land. Herbert Sickinger’s short chapter on “Partei-und Wahlkampffinanzierung” offers an instructive, but predictably incomplete account of the size and structure of party income and expenditure. Franz Sommer’s chapter on “Rural Peripheries - Urban Centers” outlines variations in the impact of the 1994 “electoral earthquake” in the forty-three new regional constituencies.
