Regional election volatility in Austria in turbulent times

This paper studies electoral volatility in Austrian state-level and federal elections against the backdrop of extraordinarily turbulent national politics and multiple crises during the last two decades. Following the classic second order election argument we expect electoral volatility to be driven by vote losses for parties in national government in these state-level elections. We explore the pattern of empirical volatility and look at alternative explanations such as regional issue agenda and campaign strategies of state-level parties.