Fabian Habersack

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I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Political Science in Innsbruck, Austria, in the area of Comparative Politics and Populism. Previously, I studied Political Science at the University of Salzburg and Sciences Po, Paris. I hold a Ph.D. from the University of Salzburg, which I received for my dissertation entitled A Nativist Zeitgeist? Explaining Party Adaptation to the Success of the Populist Radical Right.

In my research, which has been published in international peer-reviewed journals such as European Journal of Political Research, Government and Opposition, Party Politics, and Political Studies, I focus on the appeal of far-right populist parties across Europe, East and West, and the psychological and local-level roots of voter support for such actors, as well as the repercussions of their success for democracy. In particular, I draw on survey experimental designs, and text- and image-as-data to study the role and persistence of populist attitudes among voters and their views on democratic representation on one hand, and investigate the roles of populism and radicalism on the supply side.

Besides mass-level populist and democratic attitudes, party- and elite-level attitudes and actions have constituted a core part of my research. Here, I am particularly interested in established actors' programmatic and discursive strategies in a multidimensional policy space when dealing with far-right challengers. Recently obtained funding for a survey experiment allowed me to study in greater detail how political actors choose between mere signals of responsiveness vs. ideologically committed shifts towards opponents' ideological claims. In other research, linked to recently secured start-up funding towards a larger Austrian Science Fund grant proposal, I study the legislative behavior of Members of the Austrian Parliament, drawing on both, political speeches and voting records.

For more details, see publications and current research.