Research focus areas at the chair of Prof. Geser
Research at the chair of Prof. Geser concentrates on four main areas: political parties at the local level, local government, new information and communication technologies, as well as the changing profiles of work qualificationss and occupational changes.
By means of comprehensive surveys, research in the first area seeks to shed light on political change in Switzerland, including changes in the Swiss party system, from a novel (community) perspective and to test hypotheses on context factors that determine party characteristics (such as composition of party constituency, ideological orientation, power structure and so on).
In the field of local government research, a series of comprehensive surveys have been conducted for the whole of Switzerland (in 1989, 1994, 1997and 2005) providing longitudinal data on the political and administrative situation in 3000 Swiss municipalities. The comparative analyses focus on tendencies in the reform of local administration and cooperation between municipalities as well as changes in local political settings. Thirdly, since 1995, the chair has been active in systematically developing and establishing new digital information and communication media as a new field of sociological research and a source of new methods in social research. This has resulted in a large number of studies on the significance of online communication for interpersonal interaction, societies and associations, political election campaigns, university education, and academic communication.
The goal of the fourth research area, established as a part of the Swiss Priority Program "Switzerland Towards the Future" (1997-2004), was to provide basic data on the Swiss economy’s qualification needs and to identify factors responsible for the various companies’ disparate requirement profiles and the shifts observed in demand for qualifications.
For more information, please visit the web pages at the chair of Prof. Geser.