{"id":576,"date":"2023-10-31T20:50:41","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T20:50:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farrightanalysisnetwork.com\/?p=576"},"modified":"2026-07-31T14:07:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T14:07:54","slug":"the-austrian-freedom-party-from-historical-revisionism-and-populist-regionalism-to-nativist-welfare-chauvinism-and-orbanization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farrightanalysisnetwork.com\/?p=576","title":{"rendered":"The Austrian Freedom Party \u2013 from historical revisionism and populist regionalism to nativist welfare chauvinism and Orb\u00e1nization"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

FRAN Long Read <\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>

Ruth Wodak<\/p>

Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Discourse Studies at Lancaster University, UK, and affiliated to the University of Vienna.<\/p>

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This necessarily brief analysis of the successes and failures of the Austrian far-right party FP\u00d6 (\u2018Freedom Party of Austria\u2019; Freiheitliche Partei \u00d6sterreichs<\/em>), as established in political organizations in the Second Austrian Republic, focuses, firstly, on the five stages in the history of the far right. Secondly, the \u2018Haider-phenomenon<\/a>\u2018 illustrates how anti-elitism, EU-skepticism, anti-pluralism (nativism and the discrimination against authochtonous, religious minorities, refugees and migrants) were linked and integrated in a populist regionalism<\/em>, apart from appealing to historical revisionism<\/a>. The latter must be emphasized here as a unique characteristic of the FP\u00d6, due to its specific politics of the past after 1945<\/a>. However, the salient and most consequential transformation of the FP\u00d6 was its strategic transformation from a postwar German nationalist far-right party into an Austro-chauvinistic populist party<\/em>, in the 1990s, under its then leader J\u00f6rg Haider<\/a> who had first, in the 1980s, denied the existence of an Austrian identity but changed his position in the 1990s, specifically when launching the FP\u00d6 petition \u201cAustria First\u201d.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1980\u2019s and 1990\u2019s, the heartland<\/em> Carinthia was Haider\u2019s home-base, primarily because the FP\u00d6 could successfully stage and implement its agenda by first attacking the Slovenian minority, and secondly, by triggering a center-periphery antagonism (against the capital city and region of Vienna).[2]<\/a> Hence, regional populism<\/em><\/a> or populist regionalism<\/em><\/a> plays a distinctive role in the FP\u00d6\u2019s rise to power: as Newt (2021, 2), maintains, \u2018parties must be defined primarily by the civic or ethnic features of their core ideologies of regionalism or nationalism, and only secondarily by populism and\/or nativism.\u2019[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2023, the FP\u00d6 under its current leader Herbert Kickl is again embracing a populist regionalism, by winning many voters in other Austrian regions such as Lower Austria and Salzburg, regions which previously had always endorsed huge conservative majorities, i.e. the \u00d6VP (Austrian People\u2019s Party; \u00d6sterreichische Volkspartei<\/em>). These victories, however, primarily in rural regions, must also be attributed to the strong Austrian anti-vaxx movements which were cleverly instrumentalized and colonized by the FP\u00d6 during the pandemic. By mixing political illiberalism, identity politics and welfare chauvinisms with whatever seems popular at any given time<\/a>, the FP\u00d6 has been reaching out to voters who feel neglected by established political elites and are frustrated by modernization, cultural change, and globalization<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is currently impossible to predict if Kickl\u2019s programmatic move to an Orb\u00e1n-like authoritarianism might convince many voters at the next national election 2024, and that therefore, the FP\u00d6 might once again form a national coalition with the \u00d6VP in the near future. However, especially in the FP\u00d6\u2019s two national coalitions with the \u00d6VP 2000-2006 and 2018\/19, it became apparent that (some) radical right\/far-right parties such as the FP\u00d6 were not fortunate when part of the government; their success in opposition seems to be deeply rooted in their \u2018campaign habitus\u2019.[4]<\/a> Obviously, the FP\u00d6 has flipped on Europe, secularism, COVID management and calls for obligatory vaccination, climate change, social policy, market liberalism, and many issues where its positioning followed voters who were fed up with established politics and dissatisfied with liberal democracy. As an explicitly anti-system party, the FP\u00d6 positions itself where the political mainstream is n<\/em>ot; thus most recently, on vaccines, the FP\u00d6 peddled conspiracy theories, and on the Russia\u2019s war against the Ukraine, it has sided against Ukraine\u2019s and the EU sanctions against Russia<\/a> (as have other far-right and extreme-right parties such as the Hungarian Fidesz, the Italian LEGA, the German AfD and the French Rassemblement National).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"FP\u00d6<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

1. Five Stages in the History of the FP\u00d6<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The history of the FP\u00d6 dates to the early years after World War II (WWII) and the political situation created and maintained by the four post-war Allied powers that liberated Austria from Nazi occupation in 1945.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It makes sense to divide the history of the FP\u00d6 into five stages: First, the immediate post-1945 stage of the FP\u00d6, originally called VdU (Verband der Unabh\u00e4ngigen<\/em>), a union comprising mostly former Nazis<\/a>. The second stage<\/a> was marked by the transition from VdU to the FP\u00d6, which was co-opted into a coalition as a junior partner with the Social Democratic Party, the SP\u00d6 (Sozialdemokratische Partei \u00d6sterreichs<\/em>) in 1970, under Chancellor Bruno Kreisky. Although its first leaders, Anton Reinthaller and Friedrich Peter, had been high-ranking members of the SS, the party took a more liberal course, especially under its later leader Norbert Steger, becoming a member of the European Liberal Party. At the time, it only achieved under 5-6 percent in national elections<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1986, J\u00f6rg Haider, a charismatic far-right politician, took over the leadership and started the trajectory of success of the FP\u00d6, at first as a regional far-right populist party.[5]<\/a> The fourth stage was characterized by the acceptance of many members of extreme right dueling fraternities into high political offices, especially under the new leader, Heinz-Christian Strache (HC Strache), and a new emphasis on anti-Muslim views, mediatized and disseminated especially via social media, websites, and posters (Forchtner et al. 2013). This stage ended with the so-called \u2018Ibiza scandal\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two coalitions with the \u00d6VP<\/a> were formed during this period, 2000-2006 under Chancellor Wolfgang Sch\u00fcssel and 2018-2019 under Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. However, the contexts 2000 and 2018 differed in salient ways: In the national election of 2019, the \u00d6VP came third and formed a coalition with the FP\u00d6, with the \u00d6VP holding the position of prime minister. 2018, the \u00d6VP came first and formed a coalition with the FP\u00d6 on third place. In the first case, the 14 other EU states launched sanctions against the Austrian government; in the second case, the coalition was nolens volens <\/em>accepted by the then 26 EU member states (see below).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the fifth and current stage \u2013 post-Ibiza and post-pandemic \u2013 under the leadership of Herbert Kickl, former advisor of Haider (1995-2001) and former minister of Interior Affairs (2018\/19), explicitly manifests the move to greater authoritarianism by positing Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s Hungary as a model to be implemented in Austria. At the time of writing in the fall of 2023, the FP\u00d6 stands at first place<\/a>, with 30 percent, in the opinion polls. Again, in the current cost-of-living crisis, the FP\u00d6 is reaching out to (working-class) voters with a selective protectionism that caters to their welfare demands (Soziale Heimatpartei<\/em>). In sum, the rise of the FP\u00d6 can be accounted for by many factors \u2013 by its calculated and ambivalent coping with the Nazi past<\/a>, by its nativist chauvinism, by instrumentalizing the frustration and anger with crisis management (especially during the pandemic) and as a reaction to contemporary liberalism, modernization, and globalization (\u2018silent counter revolution<\/a>\u2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. 1986: A Tipping Point<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1986 marked two important events in Austria\u2019s post-war history: on the one hand, Kurt Waldheim, a former UN Secretary General, won the presidential race despite vehement criticism inside and outside of Austria. The \u2018Waldheim affair\u2019<\/a>, concerning Waldheim, received much international attention, especially during his campaign of 1986 and presidency until 1992. It concerned his actions during WWII and possible involvement in war crimes. Waldheim had covered up his time as an officer in the German Wehrmacht<\/em>. When this was made public, he denied any involvement in or knowledge of Nazi war crimes. The resulting scandal and debates cut deep into what was then a taboo topic: Austrian involvement in and responsibility for WWII, revisionism, and the Holocaust<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, the FP\u00d6\u2019s national convention on September 14, 1986, witnessed an internal coup led by the leader of the Carinthian chapter of the FP\u00d6 \u2013 J\u00f6rg Haider \u2013 who became the new federal chairman of the party. Haider\u2019s rise to FP\u00d6 leader symbolized the turn of the majority of the FP\u00d6 to radical, revisionist, and nationalist\/nativist views. Employing antisemitic and xenophobic slogans, Haider was a talented rhetorician whose parents had been involved with the NSDAP and who lived on an \u2018Aryanized\u2019 estate in Carinthia (B\u00e4rental<\/em>). He managed to lead the FP\u00d6 to successful elections at both the federal and regional levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Haiderization<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1989, the FP\u00d6 came second (after the \u00d6VP) in regional elections in Carinthia, and Haider was elected as regional governor. Obviously, the local context of Carinthia was formative for Haider\u2019s success and served as a springboard for subsequent national politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haider was very popular and achieved much positive resonance as governor, specifically by supporting the pan-German nationalists in Carinthia (against the Slovenian minority), by explicitly addressing former Nazis and Nazi ideology at commemorative events (such as the annual \u2018Ulrichsberg-Feier\u2019<\/em>[6]<\/a>) and, importantly, by opposing the erection of bilingual signposts at the entry of villages and towns in Carinthia.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This strategy relates to one of the four salient dimensions of far-right populist ideology, apart from the anti-elitist and anti-pluralist stance, the appeal for more law and order, and conservative (family and gender) values as well as revisionist politics of the past: the Volk<\/em>, the people which the FP\u00d6 allegedly represents, is imagined as \u2018homogenous\u2019, are the \u2018real\u2019 Austrians<\/a> by birth, speak the majority language, i.e. German, and are Christian. Haider constructed himself as the savior of Austria, as a Robin Hood figure, representing the \u2018man\u2019 and \u2018woman\u2019 on the street, who would save Austria from the elites and from corruption. He was frequently seen handing out small amounts of money to \u2018the people\u2019 and subsidizing cultural projects and sports festivals. He vehemently emphasized an \u2018Austria First\u2019 policy (see below).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, Haider explicitly polemicized<\/a> against the planned accession of Austria into the European Union, an EU-skeptical position which has characterized the FP\u00d6 ever since; basically, the fallacious argument states, that the \u2018elites in Brussels\u2019 dominate the policies of nation states and that thus, the EU member states are not sovereign anymore. In its chauvinistic, anti-elitist rhetoric, the \u2018elites in Brussels\u2019 constitute an inherent element of populist regionalism, alongside the \u2018oppositional politicians, liberals, journalists, intellectuals,\u2019 and so forth. This rhetoric was combined with strong center-periphery antagonism (regions against the capital city of Vienna) and an appeal to discriminate against ethnic and religious minorities, directed explicitly against the Slovene minority in Carinthia, and Jews, while equating the extermination of Jews with the expulsion of Sudeten Germans from former Czechoslovakia after 1945 (Bene\u0161 decrees<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haider also became involved in the so-called Carinthia conflict over bilingual signposts<\/a>. The national government and parliament passed a law in 1972 (with the votes of the SP\u00d6) on signposts which, in accordance with Article 7 of the State Treaty, stipulated that bilingual Carinthian villages and towns should have bilingual signs. Pan-German nationalist extremists demonstrated against the law, illegally removed many signs, and thus prevented the implementation of the law for several years, despite legislation passed by the Supreme Court.[7]<\/a> This vehement and sometimes violent conflict became known as the \u2018Ortstafelkonflikt<\/em>\u2019 and \u2018Ortstafelsturm\u2019<\/em> which continued until a consensus<\/a> was reached in 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haider also appealed to his supporters by wilfully triggering huge scandals through his so-called Sagers<\/em>, i.e., specific provocative utterances which violated post-war conventions and taboos by explicitly referring positively to Nazi ideology and historical revisionism, and by intentionally using racist and antisemitic rhetoric. This discursive strategy is called \u2018calculated ambivalence\u2019<\/a>, i.e., simultaneously addressing multiple audiences with \u2013 frequently contradictory \u2013 messages. The revisionist narratives were linked to an imaginary of the \u2018pure Austrian people\u2019, \u2018the real\u2019 Austrian, in contrast to ethnic and religious minorities. This revisionism is a unique characteristic of the Austrian far right, in salient contrast to Germany. In this way, Haider was able to get former Nazis on board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, in 1991, he infamously praised the \u2018proper\/adequate employment policies of the \u2018Third Reich\u2019<\/a>\u2019. After this utterance, he was forced to resign as governor but he remained on the political stage as leader of the FP\u00d6. Such continuous provocation and scandalization strategies were and continue to be part and parcel of Haider\u2019s and the radical right\u2019s rhetoric and attract much media attention. In this way, the FP\u00d6 dominated (and continues to dominate) the media agenda by a specific rhetorical pattern<\/a> which I have labeled the Far-right Perpetuum Mobile<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. \u2018Taming\u2019 the FP\u00d6?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the FP\u00d6 managing for the first time in 1999 to advance beyond its seemingly perpetual third place behind the two mainstream parties of the left and the right, its subsequent rise to power gained considerable momentum. Throughout the early 1990\u2019s, the nationwide anti-foreigner petitions championed by Haider\u2019s FP\u00d6, such as the 1989 \u2018Declaration of St. Lorenzen\u2019, the 1992 \u2018Austria First Petition\u2019 and the 1997 \u2018FP\u00d6 Party Platform\u2019<\/a>, significantly increased its electoral support. Indeed, after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989<\/a>, Haider successfully mobilized xenophobic sentiment directed against migrants from the former Eastern Bloc countries. He instrumentalized a \u2018politics of fear\u2019 which became known in Europe and beyond as \u2018Haiderization<\/em>\u2019<\/a> and influenced, and was copied by, other far-right populist parties. Indeed, Haiderization<\/em>, as already mentioned above, is a telling example how local dynamics can have transnational resonance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the parliamentary elections of October 1999, the FP\u00d6 received an unprecedented 26.91 percent of the national vote and, for the first time in the party\u2019s history, took second place in the federal parliamentary election. After a short period of negotiations<\/a>, the FP\u00d6 signed a coalition agreement with the \u00d6VP and entered the federal government in early 2000. This was the first time that an extreme-right party, which had frequently expressed both coded and explicit praise for the National Socialist regime, its racist and antisemitic policies, and ideologies, came to power in an EU member state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although sanctions against the Austrian government were eventually introduced by the 14 other EU member states at the time, it was not this external pressure but the controversial performance of the \u00d6VP-FP\u00d6 government which pushed the FP\u00d6 into gradual decline in the following years.[8]<\/a> When the FP\u00d6 suffered a severe defeat in elections to the European Parliament in 2004 (down to 6.3 from 23.4 percent in 1999) and then-leader Herbert Haupt was forced to resign, Haider began yet another comeback and established a new party called the Union for the Future of Austria<\/a> (B\u00fcndnis Zukunft \u00d6sterreichs <\/em>or BZ\u00d6<\/em>). The national parliamentary elections of October 2006 marked a considerable defeat for both FP\u00d6-originated political groupings. The FP\u00d6 (then headed by HC Strache, a former confidant of Haider) and the BZ\u00d6 (headed by Haider himself) only managed to gain a combined 15.1 percent of the national vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Normalizing the FP\u00d6\u2019s Agenda<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following a (typically) long period of negotiations, neither far-right movement became part of the new Austrian government, formed in early 2007 and headed by the SP\u00d6. And thus, after eight years in government, Austria\u2019s far right returned to its oppositional role, in which it remained until 2017 when \u2013 for a second time \u2013 a coalition between the \u00d6VP and the FP\u00d6 was established after the national election on October 15, 2017<\/a>. In this election, the \u00d6VP under its new leader Sebastian Kurz received 31.5 percent of the votes and came first, while the FP\u00d6 came third, with 26 percent of the votes, the SP\u00d6 having won 26.9 percent. Thus, the normalization of the FP\u00d6 and its agenda (nationalism and law-and-order politics) had succeeded, having begun from regional campaigning and \u2013 only later \u2013 widening its scope to the federal space. Simultaneously, the \u00d6VP moved to the right<\/a>, becoming an ethno-nationalist conservative party, by, for example, mainstreaming the FP\u00d6\u2019s agenda on asylum and migration policies. Indeed, the FP\u00d6 would never have succeeded so fast and efficiently without the support of the \u00d6VP. Significantly, the re-branded FP\u00d6 under HC Strache worked very hard to present itself as a non-ideological common-sense movement, seeking to obscure both that it had long been part of the political establishment in Austria and that it continued to follow a clear xenophobic, anti-EU and anti-immigration agenda<\/a>. The misogynist, anti-intellectual, anti-modern, and anti-urban or anti-cosmopolitan aspects of its agenda were pushed to the background in most public performances, while continuing to inform the party\u2019s underlying ideology in unadulterated form. Frontstage, anti-Muslim, nationalist, and anti-migrant as well as anti-EU slogans dominated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, after a new government formed on December 18, 2017, frequent scandals relating to antisemitic and revisionist documents disrupted the everyday agenda of the government. This included Facebook posts as well as songbooks of extreme-right dueling fraternities from which the FP\u00d6 recruited not just members but also leading figures of the party who became government ministers or their aides (critical and investigative journalists played a key role in uncovering this; see, e.g., Der Falter <\/em>4\/18, 23 January 2018). It seems as if the \u00d6VP in its streamlined, strategically planned trajectory to power had either ignored or quietly accepted the kind of ideologues it had aligned itself with. It should be noted that the FP\u00d6 had certainly changed since 2007; it became obvious that the programmatic elites in the FP\u00d6 were stemming increasingly from the extreme right and were overwhelmingly based in pan-German nationalist dueling fraternities. This conclusion is also substantiated by the ideological orientation<\/a> of the FP\u00d6\u2019s party program and other publications analyzed elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, on the one hand, today\u2019s FP\u00d6 attempts to act \u2018softer\u2019frontstage, but these discursive shifts are continuously disrupted by scandals relating to extreme right, antisemitic and xenophobic agendas and statements. The \u00d6VP, on the other hand, has mainstreamed many policies formerly suggested by the FP\u00d6 (e.g., FP\u00d6-Bildungsinstitut 2013<\/a>), thus arguably reducing tensions between the government coalition partners at least on the level of actual policy. In this way, the overt agenda of the FP\u00d6 has become \u2013 shamelessly \u2013 normalized<\/a> in the political mainstream and, simultaneously if less clearly delineated, in popular culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On May 17, 2019, at precisely 6pm, the German weekly Der Spiegel<\/em> and the German broadsheet S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung<\/em>,as well as the Austrian weekly Der Falter<\/em>,published a seven-minute video showing then FP\u00d6 leader and Vice-Chancellor of the nationalist-conservative government, HC Strache, and then chief whip of the FP\u00d6 in the Austrian Parliament, Johannes Gudenus, in a posh villa in Ibiza<\/a>. The contents of this video were so scandalous that Strache was forced to resign<\/a> as Vice-Chancellor of Austria and as leader of the FP\u00d6 the very next morning (May 18, 2019). The coalition was ended and the FP\u00d6 under its new leader Herbert Kickl has been in opposition ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Post-Pandemic Populism and Populist Regionalism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast to Germany<\/a>, the \u00d6VP and, at first also the SP\u00d6, never had problems forming coalitions with the FP\u00d6 despite its Nazi roots. The taming<\/em> of the FP\u00d6 was considered the best possible way to cope with its far-right populist ideology and strategies; especially Wolfgang Sch\u00fcssel declared himself as the \u2018dragon slayer\u2019, i.e., with Haider being metaphorically construed as the dragon. Obviously, Sch\u00fcssel was not successful. A cordon sanitaire <\/em>was first declared after Haider\u2019s rise to power 1986 when then Chancellor Franz Vranitzky immediately ended the coalition with Haider\u2019s FP\u00d6 on September 14, 1986<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the cordon sanitaire<\/em> established by the SP\u00d6 was only maintained nationally; regionally and locally, coalitions with the FP\u00d6 remained possible, for example in Burgenland (2015-2020). The coalitions with the \u00d6VP after 2000 made the FP\u00d6 socially acceptable (salonf\u00e4hig<\/em>) in Austria and thus started normalizing a rhetoric of exclusion. Currently, the FP\u00d6 has gained many votes<\/a> from the \u00d6VP in Salzburg (2023), Upper Austria (2017), and Lower Austria (2023) while mobilizing anti-vaxx voters who were angry about the policies implemented during the pandemic<\/a>. Moreover, the current polycrisis<\/a> (see above) led to massive discontent with \u2018the elites\u2019; many people therefore voted FP\u00d6 as sign of protest. However, the regions of<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carinthia, Burgenland, and Vienna remain in the hands of the SP\u00d6, while Tyrol, Styria, and Vorarlberg are in the hands of the \u00d6VP, with diverse coalitions excluding the FP\u00d6. The explicit objective of Herbert Kickl,<\/a> as repeatedly stated, is to win the Chancellery after having won the regional elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Immigration due to the fall of the Iron Curtain 1989 was successfully instrumentalized for Haider\u2019s \u2018Austria First\u2019<\/a> agenda; in Kickl\u2019s case, the pandemic offered a new niche for reaching out to many insecure, angry voters (Wutb\u00fcrger<\/em>), while adopting a traditional anti-elitist stance and recontextualizing the concepts of \u2018freedom and democracy\u2019. In Kickl\u2019s imaginary, Austria should be located as \u2018Fortress Austria\u2019<\/a> (Festung \u00d6sterreich) <\/em>in the center of \u2018Fortress Europe\u2019, protected from \u2018illegal migrants\u2019 through borders and walls. In both phases, the FP\u00d6 started its repeated rise to power by winning regional elections and normalizing their politics of nativism<\/a>, welfare chauvinism, and exclusion as mainstream politics, supported mainly by the \u00d6VP. The FP\u00d6 remains an antisystem party that nevertheless seeks to enter government when the opportunity presents itself. In terms of its ideological positioning, the threat to democracy posed by the FP\u00d6<\/a> (\u2018Orbanization\u2019) lies precisely in its populist, ideologically extremely flexible and ambivalent nature while simultaneously preserving its ties to Austria\u2019s Nazi past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> This research draws on many empirical studies since the 1990s, analyzing a range of different written, spoken and visual data (interviews, speeches, traditional and on-line media, posters as well as focus groups), situated in their respective socio-political and socio-economic contexts and analyzed in the discourse-historical tradition (e.g., Wodak 2021 for a summary of methodologies, data, and methods). I am grateful to anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. Of course, I am solely responsible for the final version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> According to Taggart (2000), \u2018the heartland<\/em>\u2019 was the place \u2018in which, in the populist imagination, a virtuous<\/em>  <\/em>and unified population resides.<\/em>\u2019 (ibid., 95).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> See De Cleen et al. (2018, 654); Newth (2021, 4-5) for more details, especially on terminological issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> Of course, contemporary Polish, Turkish, US, and Hungarian governments illustrate that once such parties gain majorities, they will systematically attempt to discredit, curtail, or even dismantle democratic institutions; authoritarian tendencies become manifest, particularly in attempts to censor media and independent courts. However, in the national election, 15 October 2023, the Polish far-right party PiS was defeated by a coalition of three center-left-liberal parties; hence the Polish regime will obviously shift to a liberal democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> See, amongst the vast literature, Wodak & Pelinka 2002; Pelinka & Wodak 2002; Heinisch & Mazzoleni 2016;  Ottomeyer 2010; \u00d6tsch 2000; Reisigl & Wodak 2000).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> https:\/\/www.ots.at\/presseaussendung\/OTS_20120913_OTS0135\/ulrichsbergfeier-2012-neuausrichtung-fehlanzeige-festredner-2012-ist-waffen-ssler<\/a> (accessed February 14, 2023)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a> https:\/\/www.mediathek.at\/akustische-chronik\/1970-1985\/ortstafelkonflikt-in-kaernten\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/a> Indeed, such external pressure seemed to rally support behind the government, whose leading figures called for a \u201cnationaler Schulterschluss<\/em>\u201d, i.e., national solidarity, casting the EU sanctions as foreign attempts to influence or even dictate Austria\u2019s internal affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/h2>\n\n\n

The Austrian Freedom Party \u2013 from historical revisionism and populist regionalism to nativist welfare chauvinism and Orb\u00e1nization<\/h2>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FRAN Long Read This necessarily brief analysis of the successes and failures of the Austrian far-right party FP\u00d6 (\u2018Freedom Party of Austria\u2019; Freiheitliche Partei \u00d6sterreichs), as established in political organizations in the Second Austrian Republic, focuses, firstly, on the five stages in the history of the far right. Secondly, the \u2018Haider-phenomenon\u2018 illustrates how anti-elitism, EU-skepticism, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[14,15,16],"class_list":["post-576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-long-reads","tag-austria","tag-austrian-freedom-party","tag-orbanization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farrightanalysisnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farrightanalysisnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farrightanalysisnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farrightanalysisnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farrightanalysisnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.farrightanalysisnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farrightanalysisnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farrightanalysisnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farrightanalysisnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farrightanalysisnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}