Paradoks narodowego liberalizmu. Historia i idee Freiheitliche Partei Ősterreichs

Abstract

The article describes the history and ideological profile of the Austrian parties of the ‘Third Camp’, namely Verband der Unabhängigen (VdU) and Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ). Its main goal is to analyse the course of those parties’ political life, their triumphs, failures and crises. However, it is an attempt at describing the FPÖ’s ideological profile and determining its ideological affiliations which constitutes the core of the piece. The two fundamental values of the Third Camp are liberty and nation. By tracing the development of party programmes and electoral campaigns from the end of World War II to the 2013, it is possible to observe a where liberal thinking is gradually eroded by nationalist thinking, as well as a considerable shift of emphasis. Using the example of the Austrian parties, the author tries to prove that national liberalism is a paradoxical political ideology which contradicts itself and, in the process, exposes its political parties to internal tensions, splits and inconsistency, something which, in the political world, can be a terminal illness.