Abstract
Recent developments such as the lasting impact of the economic and financial crisis of 2008 and particularly the so called “refugee crisis” of 2015—as the immigration of larger groups of people from the Near East and African countries via Eastern Europe and the Southern Mediterranean region has been termed—have posed fundamental challenges to European democracies, political parties, and policy makers. In addition, the noticeability of the effects of globalization in everyday life and relating uncertainties have contributed to feelings shared by an increasing number of voters that traditional parties are no longer able to solve today’s political, economic and social problems. Thus, people tend to support populist alternatives. The chapter focuses on the example of Austria, where the center right Sebastian Kurz List—the New People’s Party has accepted the far right-wing populist Austrian Freedom Party as junior coalition partner in December 2017. The former has itself recently turned into an in-between center right party and right-wing populist movement under the leadership of the party’s chairman and until May 2019 Austrian federal chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Due to political developments in Austria throughout the last two decades which eventually culminated in the result of the 2017 general elections and the following formation of the coalition government between the People’s Party and the Freedom Party, Austria can serve as a prime example for the analysis of a changed frame of political discourse which further supports the process of normalization of right-wing populism.
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Notes
- 1.
According to Mudde (2014) and other authors far right parties represent the views of the extreme right political spectrum. The far right combines populism with authoritarianism or at least authoritarian tendencies, it is often openly racist, and outspoken anti-democratic. It is, anyway, not possible to classify perfectly into the given categories.
- 2.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org. Accessed August 8, 2018.
- 3.
See the chapter by Samuel Salzborn in this book who critically discusses the term and argues that it is not at all useful.
- 4.
Ruth Wodak identifies two strands in populism: “There is right-wing populism, which is prevalent in north and central Europe and attacks the ‘elites’ on nationalist or very conservative issues, and its left-wing cousin, seen more in the south, which focuses on capitalism and globalization when criticizing the so-called establishment” (cf. Harris 2018).
- 5.
Though at first glance it seems that Anti-Muslimism and anti-Islam stances have meanwhile replaced anti-Semitism as a joint point of reference, the opposite is true, especially in the case of Austria (cf. SOS Mitmensch 2018; https://kurier.at/politik/inland/antisemitismus-rechte-ruelpser-der-fpoe/275.981.465. Retrieved August 25, 2018; http://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2017-07/antisemitismus-zentralrat-afd-josef-schuster-judenhass. Retrieved August 17, 2018).
- 6.
While the latter assumption also applies to the Austrian Freedom Party, it has to be underscored that this party has a direct line of tradition of national-socialist ideology.
- 7.
40% of the respondents have a positive image of the EU, 37% a neutral image and 21% have a negative image of the EU. These results have not changed since spring 2017.
- 8.
See also Salzborn in this volume.
- 9.
http://www.bmi.gv.at/412/. Retrieved August 26, 2018.
- 10.
The FPOe had been kept on the sidelines for most of the time since 1945. Its brief performance in the coalition government with the SPOe from 1983 to 1986 (under the leadership of the more liberal chairman Norbert Steger) was an exception. On principle the party had been subjected to a strategy of cordon sanitaire by both the SPOe and OeVP.
- 11.
The OeVP became the largest Austrian party in 2002 with 43% of the vote.
- 12.
Cf. http://www.bmi.gv.at/412/. Retrieved August 26, 2018.
- 13.
https://www.wien.gv.at/politik/wahlen/grbv/2015/. Retrieved August 26, 2018.
- 14.
The Hypo Alpe-Adria bank scandal has probably been Austria’s worst post-war financial scandal in which high profile FPOe politicians and other personalities have been involved.
- 15.
The Office of Public Prosecutor decided to investigate the case because sentences concerning national-socialist reactivation were supposed to be part of the songbook and the relevant politician resigned from his position. Meanwhile he regained his political function since the investigations have not found any proof for national-socialist reactivation (“Wiederbetaetigung”).
- 16.
The Austrian state Carinthia, f. i., passed a law in 2007 to ban the construction of mosques. Respective initiative was taken by Jörg Haider, then leader of the Alliance for the Future of Austria, who had called Islam a totally different culture (cf. Liebhart 2011, p. 28 f.).
- 17.
The veil and other means to cover the hair, the head and in some cases the whole body of a woman count among the most fiercely debated political, cultural and religious symbols of the recent years, together with mosques and particularly minarets. Those symbols have been intensively contested all over Europe. The core motif of anti-Muslim political campaigning was designed and firstly used in Switzerland in a referendum which aimed to ban minaret construction all over the country (cf. Kallis 2013, 62). It spread in next to no time to many European countries and also to the United States.
- 18.
https://www.thelocal.at/20170116/leader-of-austrias-far-right-freedom-party-calls-for-zero-immigration. Retrieved April 14, 2017.
- 19.
From 1978 to 1993 the FPOe had also been member of the Liberal International, then it left to avoid exclusion.
- 20.
The first run-off was invalidated by the Constitutional Court of Austria due to mishandling of postal votes. However, evidence of deliberate manipulation was not found by the court. https://www.vol.at/verfassungsgerichtshof-hat-bp-stichwahl-aufgehoben/4771127. Retrieved August 25, 2018.
- 21.
http://www.dw.com/en/eu-leaders-rejoice-at-alexander-van-der-bellen-in-austrian-election/a-36651022. Retrieved October 23, 2017.
- 22.
These organizations uphold an outdated understanding of maleness, organize fencing duels among members and show their dueling scars openly. http://www.dw.com/en/inside-the-secretive-fraternities-of-germany-and-austria/a-42447338. Retrieved June 14, 2018.
- 23.
Norbert Hofer is member of the fraternity Marko-Germania, the founding document of which terms the Second Republic a “history-defying fiction.” See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/25/austrias-far-right-fraternities-brace-for-protests-at-annual-ball, Retrieved May 26, 2018. Remarkable high numbers of FPOe-politicians, including party leader Heinz-Christian Strache (Vandalia) and a couple of the party’s chairmen, have close bonds with far-right student fraternities. In 2018, out of the party’s 51 members of parliament, more than a third (18) were active members of right-wing to extreme right fraternities.
- 24.
https://www.fpoe.at/artikel/rot-weiss-rote-ehrenerklaerung-fpoe-gegen-antisemitismus-und-extremismus/. Retrieved December 2, 2018.
- 25.
https://www.dw.com/en/austrias-sebastian-kurz-wants-to-use-eu-border-guards-in-africa/a-43947006. Retrieved December 2, 2018.
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Liebhart, K. (2020). The Normalization of Right-Wing Populist Discourses and Politics in Austria. In: Wöhl, S., Springler, E., Pachel, M., Zeilinger, B. (eds) The State of the European Union. Staat – Souveränität – Nation. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-25419-3_4
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