Populist attraction: the symbolic uses of masculinities in the Austrian general election campaign 2017

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe year 2017 brought about a political change in Austria. The hitherto governing coalition of the Social Democrats (SPÖ) with the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) was replaced with a coalition between the rebranded so-called New People’s Party (ÖVP) and the right-wing populist Freedom Party (FPÖ) which lasted only 17 months. This paper aims to theorize political masculinity and populism by taking Austria as an example. It combines the theory of Pierre Bourdieu and his conceptions of the political field, masculine domination, and symbolic violence with Raewyn Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinities and discusses how political masculinities relate to a populist political style. Examining the electoral strategies of the two right-wing parties ÖVP and FPÖ in Austria, the paper illuminates two moments of change in political masculinities when confronted with populism: the transformation from oppositional to governmental populist political masculinity on the one hand, and the populist challenge to hegemonic political masculinity on the other.