Freedom Party Research Articles

Songs of tractors and submission: on the assembled politicity of popular music and far-right populism in Austria

AbstractOur article addresses the connection between popular music and far-right populism, as exemplified by the Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ). We discuss the specific mainstreaming and normalizing potential of popular music for far-right populist politics, by means of songs that do not qualify as political or politicized music in the sense of carrying a clear political message. We introduce a multi-step methodology that addresses performative aspects of actual situations of reception (fieldwork) and in-depth analyses of the music and its affordances (group analysis). Based on this approach, we argue that these ambivalent, sometimes even contradictory musical performances take on a life of their own within a specific arrangement that we will term anassembled politicity, in the sense of a political potential activated through situational arrangements. In this way, the FPÖ's musical programme affords far-right populist interpretations through music that appears to be unsuspicious.

The normalisation of welfare chauvinism

The normalisation of welfare chauvinism

Constructing a neoliberal exclusionary state: the role of far-right populism in economic policy change in post-war Austria

How and to what extent does far-right populism impact the nation-specific implementation of neoliberal policymaking? While scholarship convincingly demonstrated the importance of ideas and the political agents propagating neoliberal ideas in policy paradigmatic shifts, there is little investigation of the role that far-right populists play in economic policy change. Exploring the ideational power and impact of far-right populism in neoliberal policymaking provides an important insight into how neoliberal political economies enact nationalist cultural exclusion. The paper traces the process through which the Austrian Freedom Party’s ideational trajectory evolved in post-war Austria and how it impacted the political mainstream. The analysis draws from the party’s discourse in manifestos, interviews, and other publications in the period 1956–2006. The results show how the specific far-right populist actor, the Austrian Freedom Party, played a significant role in rendering neoliberal ideas viable as policy option early on and ultimately constructing the neoliberal exclusionary state. By empirically showcasing how political actors from the fringes of the political spectrum can impact economic policy change, this presents an important contribution to the study of paradigm shifts, which predominantly focused on major national political actors. In light of the recent rise of far-right populism in Europe and beyond, this raises important questions for the continuity and change of the global paradigmatic dominance of neoliberalism.

THE IMAGE OF THE FUTURE IN THE PROGRAMS OF NON-PARLIAMENTARY POLITICAL PARTIES AT THE ELECTIONS TO THE STATE DUMA OF THE VIIITH CONVOCATION

Aim. To analyze the election programs of non-parliamentary political parties regarding the frequency and effectiveness of using the image of the future as an electoral technique. Research objectives are to establish whether the use of the image of the future is a common tool in the programs of non-parliamentary political parties in the elections to the State Duma of the VIIIth convocation, as well as to find out how effective the use of the image of the future is in the conditions of the formed state strategy for the medium and long term.Methodology. The analysis of the programs of the political parties "Yabloko", "Russian Party of Freedom and Justice", "Motherland", "Pensioners Party", "New People" (at the time of the elections it was a non-parliamentary party), "Communist Party “Communists of Russia”", "Green", "Green Alternative", "Civil Platform" as well as the manifesto of the party "Growth", which was used by the party as an election program. The author uses the methods of studying documents, content analysis, and a comparative method. The methodological basis of the work is the source study analysis.Results. It has been established that the majority of non-parliamentary parties have refused to directly declare the image of the future in their programs, and those parties that include the image of the future in the election program use it as a populist method of attracting the electorate, which is an ineffective tool in the conditions of the formed state strategy.Research implications of the article include the analysis of the effectiveness of such an electoral device as the image of the future in the election program on the basis of the most relevant program documents, which in practice makes it possible to classify this electoral device as ineffective for non-parliamentary parties.

Locating the Ideal State: The Practice of Place by Far Right and Islamist Parties

ABSTRACT This article explores the co-constitutive practice and conceptualisation of place in political parties at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. Illustrated with examples from the Islamist Hizb ut-Tahrir in Denmark (DK) and the Netherlands (NL) and the far right Party for Freedom (NL) and the Danish People’s Party (DK), we seek to better understand the role of place and space in the translation of ideology to practice. With the concept of lived space central to our argument, we propose that ‘ideal places’ – be they Caliphates or ethnically and religiously homogeneous nation-states – are precisely co-constitutive in that one party’s utopia is the other’s dystopia. However, pointing to the essence of co-constitutive opposing ideals does not suffice when addressing members, recruits, voters, or wider audiences; ideals must be realised, enacted or performed in order to move, drive and inspire people. Thus, we ask, how do political parties turn ideals into something tangible and practicable? Our argument is that a better understanding of the role of place through the concept of lived space helps explain the apparent success of ideologically driven non-conformist parties in Western Europe.

“Je suis … Charlie, Samuel, Muhammed”: Practicing Muhammed Cartoons in Far Right and Islamist Politics

AbstractSince the 2005 Jyllands-Posten controversy, both far right and Islamist actors have employed Muhammed cartoons to construct a radical frontier between Muslims and non-Muslims. This article aims to provide a better understanding of the linkages between two opposing forms of popular identification by looking at the utilization of the Muhammed cartoons to crystallize a multitude of (conflicting) subjects, affects, and demands. Following a vantage point of mutual relations, the article investigates the discursive performances of the Dutch branch of the transnational Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir and the far right Party for Freedom with respect to the Jyllands-Posten affair, the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks, and the 2020 killing of a French schoolteacher. Considering its cultural and political foundations of mutual respect and tolerance, the Dutch case is pertinent for examining the tension between the right to free speech and support for extremist and popular forms of (far right and Islamist) identification.

ELECTION PROGRAMS OF NON-PARLIAMENTARY POLITICAL PARTIES IN THE ELECTIONS TO THE STATE DUMA OF THE VIII TH CONVOCATION. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Aim. To analyze the election programs of non-parliamentary political parties as the key documents for understanding the party ideology, assessing its attitude to the actions of the authorities, as well as the actions procedure in case of election. Research objectives: to find out if there is a correlation between the volume of the party program and its result in the elections; to establish whether the amount and quality of descriptions of initiatives are related to the results of parties in elections; and, thirdly, to characterize the party programs based on the language features of writing programs.Methodology. The analysis of the programs of the political parties "Yabloko", "Russian Party of Freedom and Justice", "Motherland", "Pensioners Party", "New People" (at the time of the elections it was a non-parliamentary party), "Communist Party of Communists of Russia", "Green", "Green Alternative", "Civil Platform" as well as the manifesto of the party "Growth", which was used by the party as an election program, was carried out. The methods of studying documents, content analysis, and a comparative method are used in the paper.Results. It has been established that the best results among non-parliamentary political parties were achieved by those whose program volume is at least 10 thousand characters. It has been revealed that the number of initiatives included in the program for the voter is as important as the quality and detail of their description, and the linguistic features, identified through the analysis of frequently mentioned within the framework of the program of words, allow to give a basic description of the document as well as to determine the ideological and political features and directions of the party.Research implications of the article is in the comparison of the program documents of the parties with the election results, which makes it possible to identify the most successful strategies for compiling political documents.

The Main Electorate of Right-Wing Populist Parties in Europe: Cases of the Alternative for Germany and the Freedom Party of Austria

There is an ongoing political debate on whether certain groups can be considered the electoral backbone of right-wing populist parties. On the one hand, it is argued that there is no concept of a “typical voter” for right-wing populists; on the other hand, some studies of election campaigns in different countries show that it is possible to define electoral support groups for such political parties based on the social, professional, and demographic characteristics. The cases of the “Alternative for Germany” and the “Austrian Freedom Party” analyzed in the article demonstrate that the latter statement is more likely to be true. Those support groups can be identified within the framework of the sociological theory of electoral behavior, as well as the theories of the losers of globalization by H. G. Betz and the cultural backlash of P. Norris and R. Inglehart, using the analysis of existing relevant statistics, mainly sociological surveys. The examples of Germany and Austria prove the assumptions that men, workers, people with no higher education and the unemployed are more likely to vote for right-wing populist parties.

Environmental Policy Preferences and Economic Interests in the Nature/Agriculture and Climate/Energy Dimension in the Netherlands

AbstractThe idea that citizens' support for environmental policies depends on their economic interest and the community that one lives in, has been debated extensively in the environmental attitudes literature. However, this literature has not differentiated between separate policy dimensions that concern measures that affect specific groups in different ways. This paper differentiates between a nature/agriculture dimension that divides those who prioritize the agrarian interest from those who prioritize the protection of nature and a climate/energy dimension that divides those who prioritize industrial interest from those who prioritize fighting climate change, using a new survey in the Netherlands (N = 11,327). This two‐dimensional model meets three criteria: scalability, validity, and utility. Scalability is shown by factor analysis and Mokken scaling. Validity is shown by regression analyses that show that whether one lives in a rural or an urban community predicts one's position on the nature/agriculture dimension and that one's financial security predicts one's position on the climate/energy dimension. The utility is shown by regression analyses where the two dimensions are used to predict voting behavior. The Green Party voters favor nature and climate protection, the Liberal Party voters have the opposite views, the Christian‐Democrats favor agricultural interests and the Freedom Party favor industrial interests.

Radical right populist debates on female Muslim body-coverings in Austria. Between biopolitics and necropolitics

ABSTRACT The Austrian Parliament has passed three laws since 2018 that prohibit wearing Muslim body-coverings in public. This departure from a formerly tolerant approach is an outcome of ongoing anti-Muslim campaigns by the radical-right populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). The party has been mobilising since the mid-1980s through the creation of two antagonisms: ‘the elite’ and second against ‘Others’ – mainly migrants. Since the turn of the century, this anti-migrant mobilisation has targeted the intersection of gender and religion by focusing on veiled Muslim women. Targeting this intersection of gender and religion, the article applies a critical frame analysis of 19 FPÖ documents from 2006 to 2020 on restrictive rulings about female Muslim body-covering. It finds that Austrian radical right populist campaigns emphasise the female body and construct the Austrian ‘people’ (biopolitics), while necropower constructs Muslim migrants as non-belonging, excludable, and erasable.

Similar yet not the Same: Right-Wing Populist Parties' Stances on Religion in Germany and the Netherlands

AbstractApplying a qualitative framing analysis, this paper examines narratives of the right-wing populist parties Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands on religion. The paper argues that references of these populist parties to religion can be interpreted against the background of specific national context factors such as the respective history of nation building, the traditional role of religion in society and secularization processes. A rigorous examination of parliamentary documents published between 2017 and 2019 shows that whereas the PVV clearly defines Christianity in civilizational and not religious terms, the AfD takes a less clear-cut stance toward the religion framing it both as culture and faith. We contend that this difference can be explained by the lower degree of secularization and the greater role of Christianity as a collective identity marker in post-war Germany.

Financing Gender Equality

State budgets reflect political priorities, providing a measure of issue relevance over time and comparatively across states. This article offers the first analysis of Länder budgets for women’s policy agencies (WPA) in Germany and Austria between 1991 and 2018. Comparing Länder WPA budgets provides insights into material allocations to, and the conditionality of, gender politics in Germany’s strongly federalized state and Austria’s weak federation. We find that German Länder budgeted for independent WPA earlier than Austrian Länder. However, with the advent of the 1999 Austrian coalition of Christian Democrats and the right-wing Freedom Party, which aimed to dismantle national-level gender policies, Austrian Länder investment in WPA grew to compensate for diminishing federal funds. The party constellation in power mattered more in Austria, but in both countries the parties in power were more important for WPA financing than the descriptive representation of women in Länder parliaments.

Political travelers in a polarized country: the Freedom Party experience in Turkish history

This article intends to broaden our understanding of Turkish politics of the 1950s by focusing on the Freedom Party (1955–1958) (FP) founded by the former leading members of the Democrat Party (DP). Unlike earlier studies which mostly concentrate on the ideology and the leading political figures of the party, an attempt has been made to locate this experience in its historical context. After presenting a detailed account of the literature, we analyze the party by focusing on the power struggles of the internal factions inside the DP. By so doing, this study suggests that factionalism was a major cause of many noteworthy political developments of the era. Moreover, rather than strict ideological differences, we argue that this factionalism rested upon personal disputes and micropower struggles. Thus, the FP was born out of the DP not simply as a result of social discontent, but mainly of factionalism from within.

A New Chapter in the Evolution of Right-wing Populist Electoral Winning Formulas. The Implementation and Impact of Portfolio Diversification in Austria

Right-wing populist parties (RPPs) have been exceptionally successful in Austria since the mid-1980s. Since the mid-2000s, the Freedom Party (FPÖ) has faced challengers from within its own party family despite its continuing effort to adapt to shifting electoral markets. We argue that the exceptionally high vote shares secured by competing RPPs in multiple rounds of general elections can be attributed to a new winning formula of portfolio diversification. Supply-side data show that the FPÖ and its rivals varied widely in their policy-based and non-programmatic efforts of linkage building with voters. Using ESS data, we find evidence in the class basis of party electorates that suggests patterns of diversified linkage efforts expanded the joint voter base of RPPs by gaining support among groups of voters hitherto not resonating with RPPs while holding on to the vote of their core constituency. In addition, portfolio diversification plausibly allows RPPs to moderate some of their specific electoral vulnerabilities (e.g. cross-class appeal, repercussions of participation in government).

Between opportunities and constraints: right-wing populists as designers of migrant integration policy

ABSTRACT Anti-immigrant claims are seen as key to the success of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) in parliamentary opposition. Yet migrant integration policies adopted by PRRPs in executive power are still a blind spot in research. Some scholars assess their policy impact as weak and attribute this to a lack of robust policy suggestions, others point to their taming by mainstream coalition partners and by government responsibility. Recently though, PRRPs have found more favourable political opportunities in the increased salience of migration and a rightward shift of centre-right parties. Drawing on policy documents from the Austrian coalition government of the radical right Austrian Freedom Party and the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (2017-2019), this paper investigates policy designs and constraints in the area of migrant integration. Our study points out the impact of PRRPs in government on integration policy through strengthening regulatory instruments, weakening distributive instruments and using organizational instruments to centralize policy implementation at the expense of NGOs. Yet this approach not only alters the substance of policy designs, the radical right also imprints a populist mode of confrontational and accelerated policy-making. Against these changes, taming is left to political and especially institutional constraints at national and international levels.

Polityka w cieniu koronawirusa

Politics in the Shadow of COVID-19: Parliamentary Election in the Kingdom of the Netherlands On March 15-17, 2021, the first parliamentary elections in the European Union during the pandemic took place in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The political authorities of the Kingdom of the Netherlands decided to hold the elections despite severe sanitary restrictions and curfew. On January 15, 2021, the outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte, chairman of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), handed over the resignation of the entire government to the King. The immediate cause was the report of the parliamentary investigative commission announced in December 2020 on the extremely restrictive operation of local tax offices in connection with government child benefits. Mark Rutte has been running the country efficiently since 2010 and was also a favorite in the upcoming parliamentary elections. The elections were conducted without any disturbances. 37 parties were admitted to elections, the largest number in the post-war history of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The election winners were ruling party VVD party and progressive liberals from D’66. The discussion on the formation of the new government has already started and is accompanied by great emotions. It is going to be a long period of negotiations and their results are difficult to be predicted. The article presents the main actors of this parliamentary game.

Parties Matter: The Consequences of PRR Parties in Subnational Governments on Health Policy

AbstractAlthough the research surrounding PRR parties has increased over the years, health policies, an important part of the welfare system, have generally been neglected. Using an in-depth case-study approach, this article analyses the health policy consequences of PRR parties in Austrian and Italian subnational governments over time, thereby expanding the units of analysis while also looking at an understudied level of government. The findings indicate a propensity towards neoliberalism, combined with accents of welfare chauvinism in Austria and a strategy of shutting down the Freedom Party of Austria. In the case of Italy, both regional cases mark a desire for welfare chauvinism but an inability to restrict healthcare access directly. In all four cases (except Burgenland), the PRR parties are consistently chauvinistic (despite seeming to prefer welfare to liberal chauvinism, they typically implement the latter for health policies) and any factor of generosity comes from a social democratic coalition partner or not at all.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan

The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan

Is the (Mass) Party Really Over? The Case of the Dutch Forum for Democracy

Over the past decades, the Netherlands has witnessed the rise of several influential populist radical right parties, including the Pim Fortuyn List (Lijst Pim Fortuyn), Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid) and, more recently, the Forum for Democracy (Forum voor Democratie [FvD]). By analyzing the party’s organizational structures, this article seeks to determine whether the FvD may be considered a new “mass party” and to what extent ordinary members can exert influence over the party’s internal procedures. The party’s efforts to establish a large membership base suggest that the FvD set out to build a relatively complex mass organization. Through targeted advertising campaigns, the party made strategic use of social media platforms to rally support. Thus, while the means may have changed with the advent of the internet, the FvD invested in creating some organizational features that are commonly associated with the “mass party” model. At the same time, however, the party did not really seek to foster a community of loyal partisan activists among its membership base but instead treated its members as donors. The party is clearly characterized by centralized leadership in the sense that the party’s spearhead, Thierry Baudet, maintains full control over key decision-making areas such as ideological direction, campaigning, and internal procedures. At first sight, the party appears to have departed from Wilders’s leader-centered party model. However, a closer look at the party apparatus demonstrates that the FvD is, in fact, very hierarchical, suggesting that the party’s internal democracy is much weaker than the party’s name might suggest.

The (ambivalent) far-right populist stance on the European Union with the example of the Austrian party FPÖ

This article explores the attitude towards the European Union represented by right-wing populist parties by the example of the Austrian Freedom Party. Due to the advanced stage of the European integration and a multitude of its positive and negative repercussions, far-right populist parties adopted an antagonistic rhetoric aiming at discrediting and limiting the influence of the EU in a country, they represent. The FPÖ skillfully shapes a Euro-sceptic discourse in Austria, embracing a populist strategy of manipulation and hostility. The populist itself is, however, far from offering a clear political vision. Based on the reflections on populism by Ernesto Laclau, elaborating on the far-right populist strategies of a former FPÖ’s leader Jörg Haider and finally confronting the party discourse with real political actions, this article constitutes an attempt to show the complexity of a mutual relation between populism and the European Union.