The Normalization of Right-Wing Populist Discourses and Politics in Austria

Abstract

Recent developments such as the lasting impact of the economic and financial crisis of 2008 and particularly the so called “refugee crisis” of 2015—as the immigration of larger groups of people from the Near East and African countries via Eastern Europe and the Southern Mediterranean region has been termed—have posed fundamental challenges to European democracies, political parties, and policy makers. In addition, the noticeability of the effects of globalization in everyday life and relating uncertainties have contributed to feelings shared by an increasing number of voters that traditional parties are no longer able to solve today’s political, economic and social problems. Thus, people tend to support populist alternatives. The chapter focuses on the example of Austria, where the center right Sebastian Kurz List—the New People’s Party has accepted the far right-wing populist Austrian Freedom Party as junior coalition partner in December 2017. The former has itself recently turned into an in-between center right party and right-wing populist movement under the leadership of the party’s chairman and until May 2019 Austrian federal chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Due to political developments in Austria throughout the last two decades which eventually culminated in the result of the 2017 general elections and the following formation of the coalition government between the People’s Party and the Freedom Party, Austria can serve as a prime example for the analysis of a changed frame of political discourse which further supports the process of normalization of right-wing populism.