Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European ...

Austria 71
centres of power that were able to style themselves as (middle-class) protest
movements.
Ideological cleavages
A different, but equally important, systemic feature is that of ideological
cleavages. When the FPÖ appeared in 1955, it became the political successor
to the League of Independents (VdU), a group founded six years earlier
which had attracted former Nazi party members and others discontented
with the existing party choices. The Freedom Party thus became the indirect
heir to Austria’s so-called ‘third camp’ (Dritte Lager). German-nationalist
and libertarian in orientation, this political tendency stood historically in
opposition to both the Catholic Church and clerical conservatism on one
hand and Marxism on the other. The political division of the Austrian bourgeoisie
into a clerical Austrian nationalist and German nationalist subculture
explains the relative weakness of the ÖVP to this day in certain regions.
Although a considerable political force in the First Republic, the German
nationalists ended up the political losers of post-war Austria as they had no
representation in the new institutions of power.
To ensure Austria’s emergence as an independent Western democracy, the
elites constructed a ‘founding myth of post-war Austria as a nation of victims’
and of ‘Austrians as non-Germans’ [sic] (Bischof and Pelinka, 1997: 3)
although, as Max Riedlsperger (1998: 28) observes, ‘at least half of the population’
did not share this view. Even the idea that most Austrians were part
of a ‘non-political [German] Kulturnation based on a common language, history
and ethnicity was equated [by the political elites] with Nazism, and the
rejection of the concept of an Austrian nation was regarded as right-wing
extremism’ (Wischenbart, 1994: 77).
Standing outside the bipartisan project of creating an ‘Austrian nation’
had several important consequences for the Freedom Party and its role in
Austrian politics. For one, it provided the FPÖ, despite its bourgeois character,
with an identity and tradition distinct from that of the Conservatives. It
also initially ensured a small but loyal following, particularly among academics
and business circles, and allowed the Freedomites to maintain a
strong foothold in regions of the country with significant anti-Catholic or
German-nationalist orientations, such as the provinces of Upper Austria
and Carinthia. It is no coincidence that Jörg Haider was socialized in the
German-nationalist milieu of Upper Austria and then launched his political
career in Carinthia, from where he entered the national political scene and
served as governor for many years.
Perhaps most importantly, the FPÖ’s ideological distinctness served it well
when the ideas underlying the policies of its political competitors were
increasingly called into question in the 1980s. Its libertarian tradition gave
the FPÖ credibility when it demanded the liberalization of the economy. Its