Professor Reinhard HEINISCH, Ph.D.

Professor Reinhard HEINISCH, Ph.D.
Professor of Austrian Politics in Comparative Perspective

Rudolfskai 42, 5020 Salzburg

Tel.: 43 (0) 662-8044-6615
Fax.: 43 (0) 662-6389-6615
E-Mail:

Room: 2038
Office hours: Thursday, from 2 to 4 p.m.
(by prior appointment by Ms. Schütz, phone +43(0)662-8044-6600, room 2034)

Reinhard Heinisch is Professor of Austrian politics in a comparative European perspective and past chair of the department of political science (2009-2024). He began his academic career in the United States (MA-Virginia Tech 1987; PhD-Michigan State University 1994), where he worked at the University of Pittsburgh from 1994 to 2009. Since 2014, he has regularly taught at the Renmin University of China in Beijing. His research and teaching focus primarily on questions of democracy, comparative populism research and political behavior. His research has been presented in more than 60 publications, including journals such as Journal of Common Market Studies, Comparative European Politics, Democratization, Party Politics, West European Politics, Political Studies and many others. He is the author or editor of 12 books, including Politicizing Islam in Austria (Rutgers University Press 2024), Political Populism (Nomos 2021), Kritisches Handbuch der Demokratie in Österreich (Böhlau 2020),The People and the Nation (Routledge 2019). His third-party funded research projects include an EU Horizon 2020 grant on populism, a Marie Curie Fellowship on Euroscepticism and currently an Austrian Science Fund (FWF) project on conspiracy thinking and populism.

He has served as a political consultant for various government agencies and organizations, including the US State Department, the Austrian Ministry of Defense, and OGM research & communication. He is a frequent commentator on political developments in national and international media (including the BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, CNN, Foreign Affairs) and is a regular guest on the news programs of ORF, Servus TV and Puls4. Heinisch is the recipient of the Austrian National Prize for Science from the Lupac Foundation of the Austrian Parliament.