OPINION - Austria’s far-right surge and declining democracy

The author is a senior researcher at Georgetown University’s The Bridge Initiative.

ISTANBUL

It is a historic moment for the far-right in Austria, a country that, according to a global survey on democracy, has recently declined from a liberal democracy to an electoral democracy.

For the first time in postwar Austrian history, the radical-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) has won the national parliamentary elections. Under the new leadership of Herbert Kickl, the FPO has even outdone his mentor, the infamous Jörg Haider, who was one of Western Europe’s first and most successful populist leaders and succeeded in forming a coalition with the conservative Christian-Democratic Austrian People’s Party (OVP) in 2000.

FPO rises step by step in Austria

What started as a small party with 5% from the 1950s to the 1980s is now Austria’s most successful party. After winning the European Parliamentary elections in June 2023, the FPO is now the biggest player in the national parliament, representing 58 out of 183 members and almost doubling its annual budget to more than €11 million ($12.2 million).

Herbert Kickl has long been seen as the mastermind working behind the public faces of the party, starting to write speeches for Jörg Haider, designing election campaigns, and drafting the party’s platforms. Since 2020, he has become the uncontested leader of the FPO following a two-year tenure as minister of the interior during a coalition of the OVP and the FPO under the leadership of Sebastian Kurz (OVP) and Heinz-Christian Strache (FPO), which ended due to corruption scandals involving FPO leadership.

When Kickl was the minister of the interior, he raided his own domestic intelligence service in an attempt to shake the Conservatives’ alleged deep-state structures. Since then, the conservative OVP’s fear of the new leader has prevented rapprochement between both parties, prompting the current Chancellor and OVP chairman Karl Nehammer to publicly avow that no coalition with the FPO under Herbert Kickl’s leadership is imaginable.

But beyond the personal rifts, the FPO's policies would mostly converge with the OVP. Not only does the OVP share a libertarian economic approach with the far-right, but both parties also advocate for low taxes and stand in defense of capital more generally, although the FPO pretends to defend white working-class people.

Far-right extremist policies are practiced by most of parties in Austria

When it comes to the hot-button topic of immigration and Islam, the OVP has fully co-opted the anti-Muslim and anti-immigration policies of the far-right FPO during the leadership of Sebastian Kurz (2017-2020) and has since continued with these policies. Following several policies implemented together with the FPO, such as the hijab ban and the closure of mosques (all rescinded by various court decisions), the OVP continued with these policies in a coalition with the Greens, making so-called "political Islam" a criminal offense, increasing its grip on the Islamic Religious Community (IGGO), and heavily securitizing schools in an alleged attempt to prevent extremism and radicalization.

The increasing anti-Muslim racism is not a problem for only the two parties on the right. Several others share the general sentiment or simply do not care enough to defend Muslims, who, while large in number (9% of the whole population), represent only a small proportion with voting rights and thus have little to say, as few are naturalized in one of Europe’s most restrictive citizenship regimes.

When anti-Muslim legislation was introduced, the liberal party Das Neue Österreich und Liberales Forum (Neos) even demanded a more far-reaching hijab ban than the FPO-OVP coalition had proposed. When mosques were illegally closed, the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPO) applauded the government for implementing “the first reasonable politics.” All these examples speak to the fact that far-right populism is not a peculiarity of the far-right but rather widely shared. In other words: You do not need the FPO to have solid anti-Muslim policies in place.

This is similarly true for other authoritarian measures of the OVP, from attempts to dismantle the Constitutional Court to attacks on independent media and attempts to increase control over media coverage in critical cases. Authoritarianism is not only a result of the FPO's rise; it is part of a broader sentiment spreading. A large majority of the current electorate supports parties on the right (FPO and OVP) that largely favor such a turn.

How did Kickl succeed?

What enabled Kickl to mobilize such a great number of supporters this time is his ability to engage voters from the OVP and various more marginal constituencies that were frustrated by the OVP’s handling of the pandemic. Kickl has since radicalized his discourse by speaking out against international health organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO), the LGBTQI community, and alleged conspiracies regarding climate change. It is the adoption of culture war slogans that make him seem unacceptable to most other political parties represented in parliament.

While the FPO might not even join a coalition government, as other issues such as pro-Moscow positions are also at odds with most other parties, including the second-strongest party, the OVP, the problem of Islamophobia will remain.

Most importantly, the far-right turn occurs against the backdrop of a declining democracy. While many observers hold that participation in the electoral process is quite high (78%), there is an untold story in this number: More than 18% of the population has no right to vote, and a total of 20% of voters remained at home. From this perspective, only 17% of eligible voters supported the FPO, 16% the OVP, and 12% the SPO, while 38% of the population with a de facto and theoretical voice at the ballot box did not participate. Austria, with one of Europe’s most restrictive citizenship regimes, shows no signs of easing this nor of introducing civic education in schools to boost electoral participation. The most supported parties intend not to enlarge electoral participation. Under these circumstances, it is hard to imagine how a change is going to come.