Abstract
The radical right-wing populist Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) has been known for its considerable political success in national politics since the 1980s. While the party entered two regional governments recently and held the governorship in a third federal state for over a decade, it has largely remained frozen out of power in all other Austrian provinces. In this paper we examine how and to what extent the FPÖ used territorial claims and notions of territoriality in its political mobilization when campaigning for public offices. We argue that sub-state territorial claims making occurs in regions in which ethnic and sociocultural cleavages are highly salient and where the local political system is suffering from a crisis of legitimacy. Our findings indicate that territorial claims contributed to the remarkable success of the FPÖ in Carinthia, while no such evidence could be found in the other two cases. However, we conclude that under certain circumstances sub-state territorial and national claims can be successfully integrated by a nationwide populist party to maintain power durably.
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Sources: Federal Ministry of the Interior; Administrative office of the state of Upper Austria; own compilation. Notes: In the case of Carinthia the party name changed from FPÖ to FPK and after the split-up of the party to BZÖ. The graph refers to the respective main RRPP linked to the FPÖ
Sources: Federal Ministry of the Interior; Administrative office of the state of Upper Austria; own compilation. Notes: In the case of Carinthia the party name changed from FPÖ to FPK and after the split-up of the party to BZÖ. The graph refers to the respective main RRPP linked to the FPÖ
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Notes
We consider the FPÖ radical right-wing populist because it fits the criteria commonly attributed to such parties: It engages in the ‘unscrupulous use and instrumentalization of diffuse public sentiments of anxiety and disenchantment [and] appeals to the common man and his allegedly superior common sense’ (Betz 1994: 4).
There have been other cases where the FPÖ was invited into government by the locally dominant party for political expediency although this was not necessary for forming a government (i.e., Vorarlberg). However, these are neither recent cases nor such in which the FPÖ had any significant power to affect public policy and we therefore exclude them from the analysis.
The VdU was also known as WdU, Wahlpartei der Unabhängigen [Electoral Party of Independents].
For example, a challenge from Neo-Nazi extremists, who subsequently left the party and founded the right-wing extremist National Democratic Party (NDP) (Luther 1995: 438).
This is because the lion share of public funding is disbursed through the state governments to the state party organizations based on the latter's electoral representation.
See for example: ‘SPÖ-FPÖ-Koalition im Burgenland - Harmonie zum Jahrestag’ Salzburger Nachrichten 5-06-2016 https://www.sn.at/politik/innenpolitik/spoe-fpoe-koalition-im-burgenland-harmonie-zum-jahrestag-1290289.
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Heinisch, R., Marent, V. Sub-state territorial claims making by a nationwide radical right-wing populist party: the case of the Austrian Freedom Party. Comp Eur Polit 16, 1012–1032 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41295-018-0143-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41295-018-0143-0