Austrian People Research Articles

The 2019 Austrian government crisis – political consequences of the Ibiza affair

<p>W artykule ukazano polityczne konsekwencje największego w historii II Republiki Austrii kryzysu rządowego, który był następstwem ujawnienia w maju 2019r. przez media korupcyjnych propozycji składanych przez polityków Wolnościowej Partii Austrii. Afera taśmowa nazywana „Ibiza-gate” wstrząsnęła Austrią, doprowadziła do rozpadu koalicji Austriackiej Partii Ludowej i Wolnościowej Partii Austrii, a następnie do upadku rządu Sebastiana Kurza w wyniku wyrażenia przez Radę Narodową wotum nieufności. W artykule przyjęto hipotezę, że skandal umocnił pozycję chadecji na austriackiej scenie politycznej i to mimo krytyki ze strony partii opozycyjnych, że ÖVP która podjęła się współpracy ze skrajną prawicą, jest współodpowiedzialna za kryzys polityczny.</p>

Political innovation, digitalisation and public participation in party politics

Citizen engagement is seen as a way to address a range of societal challenges, fiscal constraints, as well as wicked problems, and increasing public participation in political decisions could help to address low levels of trust in politicians and decreasing satisfaction with political parties. This paper examines the perceived impacts of an experiment by the Austrian People’s Party which, in response to reaching a historic low in the polls, opened up its manifesto process to public participation via digital technology. Analysis of survey data from participants found that self-efficacy is positively associated with participation intensity but negatively related to satisfaction. In contrast, collective efficacy is related to positive perceptions of public participation in party politics but does not influence levels of individual participation. Future research is needed to explore the outcomes of political innovations that use digital technologies to enable public participation on voting behaviour, party membership and attitudes to representative democracy.

THE ROLE OF MASS MEDIA IN THE FORMATION OF POLITICAL WORLDVIEW AND TRANSFORMATION OF THE ELECTORAL STRATEGIES OF POLITICAL PARTIES OF AUSTRIA

Problem setting. Evolution of media led to the fact that in addition to their main functions, they began to perform certain functions of political parties, namely political socialization and mobilization. Therefore, one of the central places in the election campaigns ofpolitical parties is occupied by the media, and their participation acts as an independent institution of democracy. The Austrian media system represents special model of functioning of media which has an impact, both on political outlook of the Austrians, and on transformation of the electoral strategies ofpolitical parties of Austria. Recent research and publications analysis. The topic of the influence of the media on political orientations of electorate, political communication and strategies became a studying subject for scientists. (D. Dubov, D. Farrell, N. Garmash, O. Gruber, K. Kholodkovsky, Z. Komilova, M. Lettner, S. Lisova, A. Nazarbetova, P. Norris, F. Plasser, G. Plasser, P. Ulram and other). Paper objective. The article analyzes the stages of the evolution of election campaigns and the development of a political communication system in the Republic of Austria. The purpose of the article is to show, with the example of the evolution of the Austrian media system, its influence on the transformation of the political world outlook and electoral strategies of the Austrian political parties. Paper main body. A modern democratic society needs politics and political mass media. On the other hand, politics needs the society itself (voters), which, in turn, is sufficiently achieved only through the media. In the development of the political communication system in Austria allocate three stages (according to F. Plasser and P. Ulram): 1) between 1945 and the middle of the 60th of the 20th century - «domination ofparty with the newspaper»; 2) the middle of the 60th - the beginning of the 90th of the 20th century - «television» phase; 3) since the beginning of the 1990th years till today - «multimedia diversity». Thus, the perception ofpolitics occurs through various media channels, which leads to the fragmentation of political communication. Owing to social changes and technical progress, the struggle to retain their dominant position in the Austrian party system forces political parties to look for new methods to attract the electorate, hence their election campaigns become more professional. Analysis of election campaigns in the period 2006-2017 allows you to highlight the elements of their «Americanization», «personalization», «negativization». In turn, the strategies by which candidates and parties attract votes within the election campaigns are also influenced by factors such as the configuration ofpolitical institutions and the structure of the media system. A specific feature of the Austrian media system, which belongs to the democratic corporatist model (according to the classification of D. Hallin and P. Mancini), is the relatively late realization of the dualization of the television market and strong monopolistic media structures at the national level. There are four types of Austrian voters using political information and media: 1) traditionalist, the information-conscious, politically-involved (largest Austrian People’s Party voter share); 2) established, the information-interested, politically close (largest Social Democratic Party of Austria voter share); 3) modernity, politically distant, not interested information (votes for the Austrian Green Party more often); 4) unprivileged, dissatisfied with the policy, moderately informed (a high proportion of voters of the party «Alliance for the Future of Austria» and the Freedom Party of Austria). Conclusions of the research. Traditional media are an important and primary source for political information and decision making in elections, which leads to a trend of politicization of the media. The research conducted by the author allows to come to a conclusion that changes in political agitation, as a rule, need to be considered as reaction to the previous changes in a media system and electorate, and from features of modern Austrian election campaigns it is possible to allocate orientation to television and media.

From “Jewification” to “Islamization”: Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in Austrian Politics Then and Now

The content of right-wing populism is currently built largely upon Islamophobic mobilization, whereas, before the Second Republic of Austria, anti-Semitism was the principal content of populism in Austria. This article engages in a comparative discussion of the anti-Semitic propaganda deployed by political parties before the rise of the Austrofascist state and National Socialist rule in Austria and Islamophobic propaganda in present-day Austria. Specifically, the article compares the anti-Semitic discourse of “Jewification” that circulated between 1876 and 1934 with the current Islamophobic discourse of “Islamization,” which is used by political parties such as the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and the Christian democratic Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), which together currently form the coalition government in the Republic of Austria. This article comparatively investigates anti-Semitic and Islamophobic topoi to consider what continuities and shifts have occurred within the imagining of the (Oriental) Jewish and Muslim “other.”

The Art of Resistance: Cultural Protest against the Austrian Far Right in the Early Twenty-First Century by Allyson Fiddler

Reviewed by: The Art of Resistance: Cultural Protest against the Austrian Far Right in the Early Twenty-First Century by Allyson Fiddler Joseph W. Moser Allyson Fiddler, The Art of Resistance: Cultural Protest against the Austrian Far Right in the Early Twenty-First Century. New York: Berghahn, 2019. 214 pp. Austria has undergone tremendous political changes from 1986 to the present, which transformed the once politically quiet and consensus driven post-war country to a fundamentally politically polarized nation, in which a significant part of the political resistance is conducted by means of cultural productions. Kurt Waldheim's election as president and the simultaneous rise of Jörg Haider and his Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) in 1986 contributed both to Austria gradually shedding the founding myth of the Second Republic as the first victim of Hitler's aggression, but it also led to the rise of new right-wing populism. The formation of coalitions with the FPÖ and the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) in 2000–2002 and 2002–2006 as well as 2017– 2019 led to a diverse range of cultural protests against the Austrian far right, which Allyson Fiddler—one of the leading experts on this topic—carefully examines in her book The Art of Resistance, focusing on the turn of the millennium and the ÖVP-FPÖ coalitions from 2000 to 2006. The first chapter provides an overview of political developments from 1986 to 2000 as well as the cultural protests in those years, which furthermore provides readers with an overview of how Waldheim and Haider polarized the country. The second chapter, entitled "Performing Politics: On the Sounds, Symbols and Sites of Resistance," examines protests in the early 2000s from Christoph Schlingensief's "Ausländer raus!" shipping container and Paul Poet's 2002 documentary film about this project to a series of political musical performances. Very importantly, this chapter also emphasizes the enacting of everyday cultural resistance in Austria. In chapter 3, "Novel Responses: Protest in Prose," the author examines Ernst Molden's Doktor Paranoiski (2001), Erika Pluhar's Die Wahl (2003), Marlene Streeruwitz's novels and Walter Wippersberg's trilogy of political thrillers. Additionally, [End Page 127] Fiddler examines a wide range of short stories by Paulus Hochgatterer, Eva Jancak, Dieter Schrage, El Awadalla, Luca Kilian Kräuter, Hoppelmann Karottnig, Richard Weihs, Brigitte Tauer, and many more, closing the chapter with a discussion of Gerhard Haderer and Leo Lukas's graphic novel Jörgi der Drachentöter (2000). The fourth chapter, "Projecting Protest: Resistance on Screen," deals with film, of which Ruth Beckermann's Homemad(e) (2001) and Peter Kern's 1. April 2021—Haider lebt stand out among several other shorter films. The fifth chapter, "Staging Resistance: Dramatic Themes and Interventions," focuses on plays by Elfriede Jelinek, Franzobel, Streeruwitz, and Robert Menasse and also shows how theater could be brought to the streets of Vienna. This book overall offers a rich selection of well-known and also more obscure artists and their cultural productions. In her conclusion, the author argues that while Austria did not have a far-right government between 2006 and 2017, that does not mean that art did not have any reason to protest. This can be seen in Elfriede Jelinek's Schutzbefohlenen (2013), which deals with the so-called refugee crisis. Robert Schindel's novel Der Kalte (2013), his sequel to Gebürtig (1992) and Ruth Beckermann's film Waldheims Walzer (2018), as well as further episodes of Marlene Streeruwitz's So wird das Leben are mentioned, as well as Tony Glasberg's Land im Sumpf (2017), which is a fictionalized portrayal of what would happen if a neo-Nazi group took over the government. And Fiddler makes it clear that this topic is an ongoing work in progress for the artists who will continue to produce works of resistance, and there is no doubt that there will be other new artists who will become known in years to come to work on this issue. This book is remarkable for closing an important gap in Austrian Studies scholarship on contemporary politics and specifically the cultural responses and resistance to far-right wing governments in Austria. The political situation in a country...

Rakouské parlamentní volby 2017: Začátek éry Sebastiana Kurze

The article deals with the early parliamentary elections in Austria, which resulted from conflicts inside the government. The situation provides a negative example of a long rule of grand coalition. Most Austrians had lost the trust in abilities of the cabinet made up by social democrats (SPÖ) and Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) to deal with problems of the day. The public demanded an end to controversies and change of political style. In the stalemate situation it was ÖVP which initiated irregular elections into National Council. It succeeded in connecting the dynamic and perspective personality of the leader Sebastian Kurz with the image of a new and open movement. During the campaign, it emphasized themes which the Austrian public considered important (migration and asylum policy, better security, reduction of taxes) in combination with professional political marketing. After the elections, negotiations revealed programmatic overlap between ÖVP and Freedom Party of Austria, which placed third, in a number of important areas. The new government worked out an ambitious reform program, for which it secured enough majority support in the National Council; also the favourable economic conditions helped. The article provides analysis of electoral programs and the respective stages of the electoral campaign, making use of extensive electoral materials, including unarchived ones. Besides filling a major descriptive-analytic gap in the Czech scholarly reflection of Austrian politics, the article probes into actual trends of Austrian electoral marketing and electoral behaviour.

Miejsce i rola Federacji Rosyjskiej w austriackiej „polityce wschodniej”

The article analyses the attitude of the Republic of Austria towards the Russian Federation in the context of the contemporary ‘eastern policy’ pursued by this central European state. It focuses on events following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of war in eastern Ukraine in 2014. In recent years, Vienna has tried to play the role of an intermediary in talks between Moscow and Kiev. Despite the confrontational attitude of Russia in eastern Europe, the Austrian government undertook a number of activities to further deepen relations with Russia, considering mainly economic issues. However, these actions have contributed to the weakening of the European Union’s common foreign and security policy. The article also draws attention to the positions of the main political parties towards Russia, primarily in the context of the elections to the National Council, which took place in October 2017. The author also indicates the controversial activities of members of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), who formed a government coalition at federal level with politicians from the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), which was also important in the context of the relationship between Vienna and Moscow. He shows the most important differences and similarities between the Austrian and German ‘eastern policies’.

Nutrition in overweight and obesity with a specific focus on gender aspects

Efforts to optimize the diet in terms of prevention and treatment of obesity aim at long-term adaptation and reduction of energy intake according to age and physiological requirements while preserving the nutrient density with consideration of individual food preferences.As the nutritional habits of the average Austrian people are unfavorable for obesity prevention there is a clear need for action. Women are "disadvantaged" in weight control compared to men in terms of physiological conditions-and are confronted with specific needs during life course (e.g. pregnancy), whereas the average man or male adolescents present "unhealthier" behaviors and attitudes and are (still) less interested on nutrition or weight control.To achieve better nutrition a target-group specific, gender-sensitive guidance of the individual is needed, starting with pregnant women, but also habitat-oriented interventions for improved nutrition offers, which have to be sustainably assured through the support of a relevant legal and social framework.

From Retreating to Resisting: how Austrian-Turkish women deal with experiences of racism

Recent European integration discourses are more and more structured by neo-racist topoi based on orientalist markers of difference. In the Austrian debate people of Turkish origins are particularly affected by such ascriptions. They are marked as a group not willing to integrate and culturally not fitting into Austrian society. In this discursive conglomerate women are identified as oppressed victims, lacking education and being in need of help. Using biographical narratives of young Austrian-Turkish women this paper reconstructs four modi of dealing with these discursive ascriptions and experiences of neo-racist othering: retreating and pragmatically reducing ambitions, trivializing racist experiences and assimilating to the mainstream, naming facts and aiming to improve the situation by communication, delegitimizing and ironically transcending racism.

Tipping the Balance Scale? Rightward Momentum, Party Agency and Austrian Party Politics

Austrian mainstream parties perpetuated one of the longest standing grand coalition governments across Western Europe. Over at least two decades, the balance of power had shifted firmly toward the ideological right. The post-war Austrian party system has lacked viable centre parties and has failed to produce a green party on the scale of importance of those of many of its West European neighbours. It does not have workers parties apart from the mainstream Social Democratic Party of Austria (Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs, SPÖ). The lack of depth or options for coalition-building on the political left in the Austrian party system has produced unique opportunities for coalition governments on the right in the early twenty-first century. Yet, Austrian parties on the right proved seemingly unable to capitalize upon such opportunities in order to entrench a right of centre bloc of power. Despite the break with grand coalition government in 1999 to form the coalition government between the Austrian People's Party (Österreichische Volkspartei, ÖVP) and the Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ), the ÖVP–SPÖ government made a rather non-triumphant return in 2006 and again through snap elections of 2008. This article explores the difficulties encountered by parties in their attempts to capitalize upon the potential for sustaining a right power bloc by examining the strategic alignments and interaction between Austria's parties from1990–2012. It considers the trajectory of the parties electorally and in public office or opposition, examining the context and strategies employed at various points and especially as fortunes change. It argues that the Austrian far right traded the goal of policy for that of votes and later office, all the while becoming more domesticated and vulnerable to co-optation when in office. This led to party splits and some measure of party decline. Meanwhile, other parties including the ÖVP have suffered from an identity crisis adapting slowly to the rise of the FPÖ through the 1990s making strategic changes in the most recent decade to try and confront the FPÖ more directly.

Din oglinda cu memorie.Calatoria fotografiei la Timisoara (1839-1855) / From the Mirror with a Memory-Travelling Photography towards Timisoara (1839-1855)

After Niepce perfected process of taking heliographs after nature and later on, with the discovery of the procedure of Daguerre, the photography was born into this world. With the public disclosure made by Daguerre at the French Academy of Science in 1839, the daguerreotype was introduced to the rest of the Europe an the World, specially to the Viennese people who had a representative at the French meeting that year in the person of Ethinghausen. He rapidly presented the process with his return to the Austrian people, who quickly was drawn by it and soon was improved by the local scientists and artists like A. Martin and Jozsef Petzval, who introduced for the first time the lenses produced by mathematical calculations.With the improvements made to the camera and the liberty to take photographs, from Vienna the medium rapidly extended to other parts of the empire, arriving at just two months and a half from the invention, in Hungary and Banat.e first announcements were made in the same year in the German newspaper “Temswarer Wochenblatt” in Timisoara and later in the issues of the following years. e first photographer who took images in Timisoara was Philipp Dombeck, who came in the city from Bavaria, trough Bohemia and Hungary and finally established in Brasov after a short period of practice in Banat.Because the local market offered new and good possibilities to make a career in the field, after Dombeck have come Gottfried Barth and Wenzel Proksch, the last was a famous camera manufacturer from Vienna, who also worked in Transylvania.ey produced daguerreotypes for the local wealthy population at relatively high prices for that period in comparison with other products. After the photographic market grown, the daguerreotype prices dropped and taking pictures has become an aspiration for most of the people in need of representation.e two were followed by Johann Huber from Pest, Friedrich Binder from Buda, witch established later in Bucharest, Ulbach Vince (1812 – 1848) and Beck Vince (1799 – 1858), some of the initiators in Hungarian daguerreotype and later, after 1850 by Nikolaus Stockmann (1832 – 1905), who will make a great reputation in the region as daguerreotypist and photographer and later in the future dual monarchy, being granted the title of “imperial photographer”.Besides the “traveling photographers”, Timişoara was also a developed cultural centre with high aspirations regarding the new innovative methods created by arts and science, and the local “Lyceum” and physics laboratory was endowed with different optical and photographic apparatuses for lessons. e laboratory has been enriched constantly by the future priest and photographer Jozsef Brand, who became a well known figure in the city.Due to its role and position within the Empire, the Banat region mediated the extremities, uniting the western world with the eastern, in a common cultural dialogue which was based at some time upon the photographic image.

Lights, camera, … protest! Austrian film-makers and the extreme right

When the extreme-right, populist Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) formed a coalition government in February 2000 there was wide-spread international outcry, with the European Union placing sanctions on its co-member country pending an investigation into the party and its practices. In Austria itself, protest manifested itself in acts of regular street demonstrations and public debates, but artists, too, expressed their resistance to the new coalition government in a variety of forms. This article discusses a dozen short films from the series, 'Die Kunst der Stunde ist Widerstand'/'The Art of the Day is Resistance' and explores the range of different aesthetic responses by film-makers in the series. The series offers far more than simply documents of the unrest. Instead, it provides extensive and innovative stimulus for critical engagement.

Variations of frataxin protein levels in normal individuals

Friedreich's ataxia (FRDA) is the most common of the inherited ataxias and is associated with GAA trinucleotide repeat expansions within the first intron of the frataxin (FXN) gene. There are expanded FXN alleles from 66 to 1,700 GAA·TTC repeats in FRDA patients and correlations between number of GAA repeats and frataxin protein levels are assumed. Here, we present for the first time frataxin protein levels as well as analysis of GAA triplet repeats in the FXN gene in a population of 50 healthy Austrian people. Frataxin protein levels were measured in lymphocytes from blood samples by ELISA and GAA repeats were analyzed by capillary electrophoresis. Rather unexpectedly, we found a high variation of frataxin protein levels among the individuals. In addition, there was no correlation between frataxin levels, GAA repeats, age and sex in this group. However, these findings are of great importance for better characterization of the disease.

The 2006 Austrian Parliamentary Election: From Bipolarism to Forced Marriage

Austria's 2006 election brought to an end the centre-right coalition led by the Austrian People's Party (Osterreichische Volkspartei, or OVP).1 Upon first becoming Chancellor in February 2000, Wolf...

Mobilizing Workers in Post-War Austria: The Battle for Political Control of the Works Councils in Upper Styria

THE roots of modern Austrian political culture, consensus, neutrality and proportionality (Proporz), developed in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. They were the results of pragmatic political responses to a dire situation, not of a well laid plan. Nor were they based on specifi c ideological beliefs. This was the politics of pragmatism that was adopted by political leaders operating in a climate of internal and external confusion, insecurity, suspicion and fear. The backdrop was the position of Austria in 1945, lying on the geopolitical fault-line which would become the Iron Curtain, and thus existing in constant fear of Soviet domination. Both dissent and domestic protest were condemned by the two major political parties, the Austrian People’s Party (OVP/Osterreichische Volkspartei) and the Socialist Party (SPO/Sozialistische Partei Osterreichs), who feared that anything other than complete unity would lead to destabilization and foreign intervention, or, to be more precise, the absorption of Austria into the evolving Eastern Bloc. Consensus was necessary in order to prevent domestic confl ict, which might enable the Russians to absorb all of Austria, or to divide the country between East and West (as did indeed happen in Germany after 1949). All post-war Austrian politicians, with the exception of the left wing of the Socialist Party and the whole Communist Party (KPO/Kommunistische Partei Osterreichs), were therefore agreed that social harmony was essential. One-quarter of Austria was occupied for ten years by Soviet troops and the country had borders with two states, Hungary and Czechoslovakia,

Wien — London, hin und retour. Das Austrian Centre in London 1939 bis 1947 by Marietta Bearman, Charmian Brinson, Richard Dove, Anthony Grenville, Jennifer Taylor

AUSTRIAN STUDIES, I3, 2OO5 275 to some extent deadening, but take one man out of many and it can still be heartbreaking' (p. 206). Magdalen College, Oxford Robert Pyrah Wien London , hin und retour. Das Aust?an Centre inLondon 1939 bis 1947. By Marietta Bearman, Charmian Brinson, Richard Dove, Anthony Grenville and Jennifer Taylor. Vienna: Czernin. 2004, 287 pp. 23,00. isbn 3-7076-0165-X. This book focuses on an organization set up in London in 1939 by Austrian refugees who had escaped Nazi persecution. Assisting newly arrived immigrants inadapting to life ina foreign country and providing an Austrian oasis inLondon to ease homesickness were among itsprincipal purposes until 1947, when the Austrian Centre closed itsdoors. As well as supporting individual immigrants, the Centre tried to establish itself as an official organization representing the Austrian people and therefore entided to negotiate with the British government for an improvement in the legal status ofAustrian immigrants toGreat Britain. The authors explore how the Austrian Centre gradually made itselfheard. As the British started to detain so-called enemy aliens in camps all over the country ? some were even transferred to places as distant as Australia ? the Austrian Centre made every effort to convince the British government thatAustria was to be considered as an occupied country and not a German war ally, and therefore that the internment of Austrian men as enemy aliens was incorrect according to international law.The demand for recognition of Austria and her people as victims of Nazi Germany soon became the basis of all of theAustrian Centre's endeavours, both in the cultural sphere and in terms of political lobbying. The Allied Powers adopted a similar stance when, in theMoscow Declaration of 30 October 1943, theydeclared Austria to have been 'the first country to fall victim toHitlerite aggression' and asserted that theywished 'to see re-established a free and independent Austria'. Towards the end of thewar theAustrians pleaded for a separate battalion within the British forces, in order to support the Allies in the liberation ofAustria. In tracing the development of the Austrian Centre during the war years, the authors follow the chronology of international events, and the respective chapters are structured in accordance with the changes in Soviet-British relations. In doing so, they emphasize how far theAustrian Centre's bargaining power depended on Soviet politics ? because the Austrian Centre was dominated by Communists. Consequently, the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939 had generally negative effects on the Austrian Centre's credibility and shattered political beliefs within the leftist exile community. Despite Stalin's policy, the Austrian Centre tried to present itself as a reliable ally in the battle against Hitler. But itwas not only the Austrian Centre that strived for British acknowledgement. Several exile organizations tried to establish themselves as the legitimate representatives ofAustrians in exile, and strong rivalry,especially between Communists and Socialists, prevented concerted action, while the British showed no preference for either. 276 Reviews The Austrian Centre activists followed twomain strategies. First, they used informal contacts with British politicians to gain intercessors for Austrian interests, as is recounted by Charmian Brinson in the third part. Second, they launched massive propaganda to attract the attention of the British public to the Austrian case, focusing on future conceptions of Austria as well as on the fate of theAustrian refugees inBritain. The youth organization 'Young Austria', for example, not only introduced Austrian teenagers to patriotic thinking but also was able to reach British youth organizations. The authors dedicate a considerable part of their book to the manifold cultural endeavours of the Austrian Centre, to publications such as Zeitspiegel and Austrian News, to theatre groups such as the 'Laterndl' and to musical events. Evidently, the Austrian emigrants did not flinch from trading in tired clich?s, and promoted both classical music and, on stage, the Wiener Schm?h as Austrian cultural assets. A critical examination of this phenomenon would have enhanced the historical analysis. In concentrating on the different means of political propaganda used by the Austrian Centre, the authors manage to avoid the well-trodden path of a biographical focus on renowned ?migr?s, and are thus able to reveal interesting perspectives. However, the reader is in...

Austrian Issue in the Mirror of Russian Media (1945-1955)

It should be pointed out that the attitude of Russians to Germany and to Austria at that time, as well as earlier, was always different. Nazi’s Germany was considered an evil aggressor, who annexed peaceful Austria in 1938, by force involving it into the World War II and so on. The confirmation of empirical observations can be easily found in the official Soviet press. For instance, still before the invasion of Vienna in April 1945, the main state newspaper of the Soviet Union “Pravda” wrote that:“Austria fell the first victim of the German aggression. (...) terrorist occupation by Germany, its predatory policy evoked in Austrian people feeling of hatred of Germans as those who’re guilty of all the hardships for the last seven years”. Certainly, the Soviet government did not put the sign of equality between Austria and, for example, Poland. Should an opportunity arise, the Kremlin press would use it to underline that “Austria is responsible for the participation in the war on a Hitler’s side...there are certain circles in Austria that though proclaimed “neutral position” relating to German-fascists’ occupation, in fact supported the regime of the German terror”. And the permanent mouthpiece of the Red Moscow- TASS (Telegraph Agency of Soviet Union) was indignant that during the November elections in 1945 in some regions of Austria “where the influence of Hitler’s men was stronger”, only 40-45% of people took part in elections.

Background morbidity of headache in an adult general population. Results of the Austrian SERMO (Self-Reported Morbidity) study.

To assess period and point prevalence of headache in Austria and the influence of sociodemographic factors and seasonal variations. Data for the prevalence of headache were drawn from the database of seven representative surveys in the SERMO study (Self-Reported Morbidity Study). The aims of the SERMO study are to describe and monitor the characteristics of background morbidity in the Austrian population. The study is based on face-to-face interviews. Headache/migraine was one of 36 disorders the interviewed persons were asked about. The representative samples of the Austrian general population were selected by the "quota-procedure". Thus each cross sectional sample is representative for the entire Austrian population. The study population consisted of 7,162 Austrian people over 15 years of age. About one fifth (20.1%) of the Austrian adult population reported having headaches during the year (prevalence 26.4% in women vs. 13.0% in men, p<0.001). Period prevalences varied from 19.6% in August to 23.1% in October 1995. Mean point prevalence in the general population was 5.7% (3.6% in men vs. 7.7% in women, p<0.001). The highest point prevalence (8.0%) was observed among people over 60. Whereas period prevalence showed no trend with age or education, we found increasing point prevalence with age and lower levels of education. In general, significantly more people with self-reported headache suffered from stress (39.1% vs. 33.7%, p<0.001) and chronic diseases (33.6% vs. 23.2%, p<0.001) and took drugs regularly (all kinds of medication: 44.3% vs. 26.8%, p<0.001). Headache is one of the most commonly experienced symptoms in Austria. The most common concomitant disease in the study population as a whole was hypertension. People with headache had a higher prevalence of hypertension, rheumatic diseases, venous diseases, diabetes and a higher consumption of drugs. Therefore, headache, as one aspect of multimorbidity or a symptom of other diseases, could be an indicator of impaired well-being and poor health.

The ability of organic farming to nourish the Austrian people: an empirical study in the region Mostviertel-Eisenwurzen (A)

The ability of organic farming to nourish the Austrian people: an empirical study in the region Mostviertel-Eisenwurzen (A)

The ability of organic farming to nourish the Austrian people: an empirical study in the region Mostviertel-Eisenwurzen (A)

A sustainable agricultural and food system is characterized by two qualities: availability of high-quality, healthy food along with the best possible preservation of natural resources. Organic farming is discussed as a solution model for the complementary achievement of both aims. Taking the region Mostviertel-Eisenwurzen (A) as a case study, the present investigation examines the regional self-reliance in food production by means of three scenarios. In the basic scenario, the current land use of the region is set against the present-day food demand of the local population. The organic scenario assumes that the farming method of the region adheres 100% to the guidelines of organic farming. The food produced is set against the current food demand, as in the basic scenario. In the third scenario–-the organic-alternative scenario–-the 100% organically produced food is set against a food demand of the local population that follows the recommendations of nutritional science, comprising more plant-based diets. The results show that in the case of the hypothetical conversion to organic farming, food production decreases in absolute numbers. Despite this reduction, the local population can be sufficiently supplied with food energy, both in the case of the average Austrian diet as well as in a diet according to the recommendations of nutritional science. The number of people that can be supplied outside the region is higher in the nutritional science diet than in the average Austrian diet, despite the lower total net export quantity. While egg, meat and milk production are up to six times the local demand, the degree of self-supply of plant products (especially fruit and vegetables) covers only two-thirds of the demand after conversion. Moreover, our calculations show how a change of consumption patterns affects the demand for imported feedstuff. The region changes from being a net importer of concentrate (76,190 t fresh mass) at the starting point to a gross exporter (39,784 t fresh mass) in the organic and the organic-alternative scenario. In summary, agricultural production according to the guidelines of organic farming and a diet following the recommendations of nutritional science seems a promising strategy for achieving a sustainable agricultural and food system.