Alejandro Ecker
A5020209500- Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Political Influence and Corporate Strategies
- European Union Policy and Governance
- Social Policy and Reform Studies
- Social Media and Politics
- Fiscal Policies and Political Economy
- Game Theory and Voting Systems
- Populism, Right-Wing Movements
- Survey Methodology and Nonresponse
- Bayesian Modeling and Causal Inference
- Advanced Causal Inference Techniques
- Reliability and Agreement in Measurement
- Corruption and Economic Development
- Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Public Policy and Administration Research
- Probability and Statistical Research
- Media Studies and Communication
- Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)
- Data Analysis with R
- Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Labor Movements and Unions
- Forecasting Techniques and Applications
- Species Distribution and Climate Change
- demographic modeling and climate adaptation
- Environmental Education and Sustainability
Heidelberg University
2021-2025
University of Mannheim
2011-2022
Mannheim Centre for European Social Research
2011-2022
Heidelberg (Poland)
2022
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
2021
University of Leeds
2021
University of Bremen
2021
Government of Lower Austria
2015
University of Vienna
2013-2015
This study explores how researchers’ analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden lens to emphasize idiosyncrasy conscious and unconscious decisions that researchers make during data analysis. coordinated 161 73 research teams observed their as they used same independently test prominent social hypothesis: greater immigration reduces support for policies among public. In this typical case...
This study investigates researcher variability in computational reproduction, an activity for which it is least expected. Eighty-five independent teams attempted numerical replication of results from original policy preferences and immigration. Reproduction were randomly grouped into a ‘transparent group’ receiving code or ‘opaque only method description no code. The transparent group mostly verified (95.7% same sign p -value cutoff), while the opaque had less success (89.3%). Second-decimal...
Fighting corruption is a vital aspect of good governance. When assessing government performance voters should thus withdraw electoral support from parties that turn blind eye to or even engage in corrupt practices. Whereas most accounts performance-based voting focus on economic outcomes, we analyse whether and what extent punish incumbents for high levels corruption. Using data the Comparative Study Electoral Systems, find while perceiving incumbents, depends individual-level attributes...
Multiparty government in parliamentary democracies entails bargaining over the payoffs of participation, particular allocation cabinet positions. While most literature deals with numerical distribution seats among parties, this article explores individual portfolios. It argues that coalition negotiations are sequential choice processes begin those portfolios important to parties. This induces conditionality process as choices positions not independent each other. Linking logic party...
Why do some government formation periods end after a few days, while others last for several weeks or even months? Despite the rich literature on formation, surprisingly little is known about underlying bargaining processes. This article introduces new dataset 303 attempts in nineteen European democracies to analyse duration of individual rounds. The study hypothesizes that (1) preference tangentiality, (2) ideological proximity, (3) incumbency and (4) party leadership tenure decrease...
This study explores how researchers’ analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden lens to include conscious and unconscious decisions that researchers make during data analysis may lead diverging results. coordinated 161 73 research teams observed their as they used same independently test prominent social hypothesis: greater immigration reduces support for policies among public. In this typical...
Although many studies analyse government formation and termination, there is only scant attention to the duration of processes. The few existing focus on empirical evidence parliamentary democracies in Western Europe until 1998. We present a new data set 297 processes 27 European countries that allows us test models explaining delays process developed using from Central Eastern (CEE). Our results suggest these perform much better heartland coalition than context CEE. highlight implications...
Social network site (SNS) data provide scholars with a plethora of new opportunities for studying public opinion and forecasting electoral outcomes. While these are certainly among the most promising big applications in political science research, series pioneering studies have started to uncover vast potential such estimate policy positions actors. Adding this emerging strand scholarly literature, present article explores validity (individual) derived from social structure microblogging...
Abstract Government formation in multi‐party systems often requires coalition negotiations and finding common ground among partners. Supporters of parties involved the government process face a trade‐off when evaluating such bargaining processes: on one hand, voters usually prefer seeing their party being rather than opposition; other require compromises that they might dislike. In this paper, we study voters’ willingness to accept policy during processes. We argue acceptance depends both...
This paper examines the validity of three approaches to estimate party positions on general left-right and EU dimensions. We newly introduce elite data from comprehensive IntUne survey cross-validate it with existing expert manifesto data. The estimates generated by elites experts show a higher congruence than those derived manifestos; neither measure clearly materializes as more valid regarding positions. identify which factors explain diverging estimates. For instance, disagreement among...
Abstract Studies on the relationship between religious attitudes and towards climate change other environmental issues have tended to focus United States. While there is good reason expect such a exist, our understanding of it limited first foremost by number country-comparative studies. This study aims reduce this gap investigating how trust in Church evaluations Pope Francis affect views Latin Americans anthropogenic change. Our based data from 2017 Latinobarómetro with 13,472 respondents...
Twitter has become one of the primary platforms for politicians to interact with public. Consequently, research into politicians’ usage proliferated attempts at measuring increasingly complex concepts such as ideology or policy attitudes. So far, many these studies either implicitly explicitly assume that accounts are operated by themselves and free present their “true” attitudes positions. We conducted an elite survey in Germany evidence assumptions only partially hold true. In our sample,...
Parliamentary speech is an important and highly visible feature of legislatures in democracies. Time parliament scarce the allocation floor time characterised by largely incompatible preferences between party leaders, aiming to preserve a unified label, individual members (MPs), facing incentives differentiate themselves take alternative stances maximise their personal reelection prospects. This paper investigates role MP policy positions parliamentary speeches different institutional...
This study addresses a fundamental question in democratic systems: how do government parties allocate executive portfolios? While extensive research has tackled this at the national and regional levels, there is notable gap understanding local level. issue by analysing portfolio allocation level Germany. Both quantitative aspect, focusing on number of portfolios, qualitative examining distribution across policy fields, are explored. The findings reveal highly politicised approach to Local...
Abstract The success and longevity of coalition governments depends on the ability to keep conflicts between members at bay. risk such is often assessed by drawing proxy measures, as ideological heterogeneity among government parties. This article presents a new approach measuring atmosphere ‘coalition mood’ time-varying measure that draws applause patterns partners during legislative debates. exemplifies measurement based automated analyses over 105,000 plenary debates in Germany Austria....
Sub-national self-governance is on the rise across European democracies. This increasing decentralization changes party competition in multi-level governance systems, and has broad implications for voters' ability to assign political responsibility hold politicians accountable. Regarding interplay between dual accountability – that is, attribution of relevant level we propose distinguish conceptually an electoral a governmental arena. Whereas arena challenged by varying degrees system...
Which party controls which cabinet posts is an important determinant of how multi-party governments work. Existing research shows that parties' attention to policy domains in election manifestos a key predictor portfolio allocation. However, are broad documents and typically published months before election. This note argues emphasis the last few weeks matters for allocation, because parties can focus their message, react exogenous events use campaign communication as commitment device. A...
This paper reports findings from a crowdsourced replication. Eighty-five independent teams attempted computational replication of results reported in an original study policy preferences and immigration by fitting the same statistical models to data. The involved experimental condition. Random assignment put participating into either transparent group that received code, or opaque receiving only methods section, rough description no code. mostly verified numerical with sign p-value threshold...
In an era of mass migration, social scientists, populist parties and movements raise concerns over the future immigration-destination societies. What impacts does this have on policy solidarity? Comparative cross-national research, relying mostly secondary data, has findings in different directions. There is a threat selective model reporting lack replicability. The heterogeneity countries obscures attempts to clearly define data-generating models. P-hacking HARKing lurk among standard...