Our research in the field of empirical political science is influenced by an interest in questions regarding content and methodology. Given our background of political science, we pay attention to the input side of modern democracy in various ways. Our research focuses on elections and voting, parties and Members of Parliament as well as communication and new media. Political opinion and behavior of citizens form its nucleus - under special awareness of information and decision making processing as well as the specific informational and institutional context. By doing so, we mainly consider explanatory approaches from the fields of political communication research and political psychology, including the relevant tools: Methodologically, we are predominantly interested in different ways of data collection, most importantly, survey research, including possibilities of extension and enrichment e.g. with the help of experimental designs or the use of innovative data collection procedures such as real-time-response measuring, reaction-time measuring or implicit association tests.