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Facing the threat from right-wing populism at Junes Euro-elections, Austria offers lessons for progressives.

Although the mainstreaming of the far right is often presented as European democracies main contemporary challenge, in Austria this is neither new nor does it any longer surprise. Despite the countrys nationalist-socialist past and its role in the Third Reich, which led most Austrian parties at the outset to place a cordon sanitaire against the Freiheitliche Partei sterreichs (FP), the far-right party has nonetheless repeatedly been included in governing coalitions with the centre-right and effectively normalised over the years.

And ahead of this years parliamentary elections, the FP is surging in the polls. There is a real chance of an FP-led government under the hardliner Herbert Kicklencapsulating how far the far right and its policy positions have been accommodated in the Austrian public sphere and political system.

The FP is the successor to the Verband der Unabhngigen (Union of Independents), founded by former Nazi functionaries and SS officers in 1949 when former Nazis regained their right to vote. In 1956, after Austria had reclaimed its independence, the FP emerged.

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Despite the partys Nazi roots, and its strain of pan-German-national, anti-Semitic and xenophobic thought, time and again it enjoyed high popularity over subsequent decades. The FP even served as a coalition partner in 1983-87 with the centre-left Sozialdemokratische Partei sterreichs (SP), before Jrg Haiderson of former Nazistook over and the party gained notoriety.

Haider however made radical right-wing politics socially acceptable once again. In the 1999 elections, the FP pipped the centre-right sterreichische Volkspartei (VP) and the two parties entered coalition. The first time since the second world war that a western democratic government had incorporated an explicitly extreme-right party (albeit Haider elected not to join it personally), in 2000 Austria thus set a precedent. An international outcry followed, European Union sanctions politically isolating the Alpine republic.

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Diplomatic quarantine of Austria in response to its ambivalent approach to extremist politics was however not unprecedented. In 1986, after the election of the former United Nations secretary-general Kurt Waldheim as president, on an VP ticket, Austria faced isolation, given Waldheims attempts to cover up his membership of a Nazi organisation and involvement in war crimes. And although this led to Austrias reckoning with its role as a collaborator in the Third Reich, it did not prevent the resurgence of the far right over the following decades.

Today, such international reaction to the inclusion of a far-right party in government would be unthinkable, given the intervening success of the far right, not just in Austria but in Europe more generally. In 2017, when the VP was led by Sebastian Kurz into a second coalition with the FPits distinctions on most issues from the FP by now almost indiscerniblefew even batted an eyelid.

As Jan-Werner Mller writes in his latest book, Democracy Rules, there is no western democracy where a right-wing, authoritarian-populist party has come to power without the help of established conservative elites. This is particularly true of Austria, where the VP repeatedly elevated the FP to governing positions while taking over some of its ideas, particularly on immigration. Other parties did pursue a policy of exclusion, trying to minimise the appeal of the FP, but with limited successfar-right ideas and policy positions having been shamelessly normalised, as Ruth Wodak puts it, especially under Kurz.

Now any attempt by the VP to demonise the far right would seem rather dishonest. As a paper by Reinhard Heinisch and Fabian Habersack demonstrates, trends in public opinion now tend to favour far-right positions and the two parties share essentially the same voter base. This further motivates the VP to align its policy positions with those of the FP, routinising far-right politics and rhetoric.

With each passing week, it seems more and more likely that the FP will take first place in the parliamentary elections in Austria. Were this to be so, for the first time in the countrys history the party would be able to name the chancellor and be tasked with forming a government.

This is concerning not just because of the FPs links to the neo-Nazi milieu but also its record of racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobiaswatted away as isolated cases. A 2024 FP victory would most likely lead to another coalition with the VP, although there is a slim chance that the left and mainstream parties would try themselves to form a government with the VP to keep the far right out.

A rerun FP-VP coalition would seriously harm Austrian democracy. As the party has previously demonstrated, it rejects fundamental liberal values, such as the rights of members of minorities and LGBT+ individuals, and seeks to curtail basic freedoms. Recently, the FP threatened to teach the media how to behave.

The far right leaves no doubt about the direction in which it would take the country if it were to lead the government. The FP already showcases it in regional coalitionslatterly with the VP in Lower Austria, where the FP deputy governor is Udo Landbauer, also a member of the extreme-right fraternity Germania.

The regional government there aims to ban gender-inclusive usages in German (such as Lehrer*innen to refer to teachers, male and female) and, in truly nativist fashion, forbid languages other than German being spoken in school playgrounds. It also favours bonuses for restaurants that provide traditional, national cuisine.

Given the unabated rise of the far-right, the question for democratic parties remains how to stem it. That question applies too at the European level, as European Parliament elections loom in June and opinion data suggest a surge in support for the far right.

Another radical-right, Eurosceptic government in Austria would in itself further strain European unity and strength, already challenged by demagogues such as Hungarys Viktor Orbn, who undermines the EU at every opportunity and defies the image of a geopolitical bloc able to speak with one voice. More crucially, the rise of the far right across Europe comes amid pressing international challenges, posed from the outside, which call for more unity among statesnot a return to nationalism and ignorance.

There is no panacea. But there are a number of strategems the liberal left could adopt to mobilise its base and maximise its vote share.

First, as Lonie de Jonge and Anna-Sophie Heinze contend, one must understand what drives support for the far right. The FPs involvement in large-scale corruption under its former leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, led to the break-up of the coalition with the VP in 2019 and its plummeting in the polls. The partys resurgence can be read as a product of the serial crises of recent years: the pandemic, inflation and economic hardship, the downfall of Wunderkind Kurz undermining voters trust in the VP and Russias invasion of Ukraine with its attendant economic insecurities. While citizens became increasingly dissatisfied with the handling of these crises by the VP-Greens governing coalition, Kickl, Straches successor, successfully portrayed immigrants and elites as scapegoats for all ills.

Unable to compete with the far rights unstoppable force, the political mainstream has focused on shunning it. Of course, one must clearly affirm the threat posed by the far right and highlight the contradictions among its rhetorical tricks. But to centre on ostracising far-right parties and by implication their voters, portraying them as irrational, makes them feel misunderstood and disdainedfeeding into the populists narrative of political elites who ignore everyday people and their interests. With FP support currently around 30 per cent, one cannot dismiss almost one-third of the voting population in this way.

Yet progressives should equally avoid appropriating issues from the far right and trying to win over voters by moving further to the right themselves. In so doing, they risk alienating their own votersthe issue of people movement being a case in point. As the recent Dutch elections have shown, the centre taking over such right-wing topics can strengthen support for the far right, not weaken it: voters tend to go for the original, not the copy, as the former French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen liked to say.

The far right complains loudly about the status quo and winds up public outrage. Yet in so doing it oversimplifies complex issues, to which its populist discourse offers no viable solutions. Progressives should tap into this specific weakness. They should demonstrate that they are capable of providing effective answers to the most pressing public concerns, actively addressing the issues which otherwise underlie far-right support with convincing arguments.

Liberal-left parties should also present themselves as approachable and genuinely concerned with peoples worries. The new SP leader, Andreas Babler, serves as a great example. Babler acquired currency with his personality and closeness to the base. With his passion and progressive programme, speaking to public concerns, he started a movement which helped the party regain some of its popularity among those who had long given up on it, disenchanted by the factionalism and lack of direction.

Rather than paint immigrants as scapegoats for social hardship, he pointed to the powerful economic elites and those who got rich at the expense of the workers. Thus he addressed the concerns of voters and demonstrated that he understoodwithout dipping into the far-right political toolbox. Moreover, as the mayor of Traiskirchen, a small Austrian town famous for sustaining the countrys largest refugee centre, he serves as a paradigm of how to manage people movement successfully, retaining popularity while demonstrating humanity and refraining from demonising immigrants.

Those opposing the far right in June across Europe should focus on emphasising and protecting the liberal-democratic values for which they stand and present a compelling programme to address voters concerns. In the end, exhibiting a passion for politics and the citizenry while demonstrating competence and a hands-on approach to the challenges of the day will be a more successful way to regain support than copying and further normalising far-right ideas.

Progressives would do well to remind voters that the huge global challenges of today will not be resolved by the politics of the far right, with its embittered inward turn to isolationism and nativism. That, history tells us, has never been a solution.

This is part of our series on a manifesto for the June 2024 Euro-elections

Gabriela Greilinger is an Austrian-Hungarian political scientist and co-founder of the youth platform Quo Vademus. She regularly writes about EU politics, international affairs, democracy and populism, with a regional focus on Europe and in particular central and eastern Europe.

See the article here:
Normalising the far right: a warning from Austria - Social Europe

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