The rise of the Austrian Freedom Party under Jörg Haider and Right Wing Populism in Austria 1986-2000. An historical and political study of Haider's FPO with a case-study giving a cultural perspective.

摘要

The extraordinary political success achieved by the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) under theudleadership of Jörg Haider during the 1990s is widely known as the ¿Haider Phenomenon¿ inudacademic literature. This thesis is a cultural-historical investigation into the roots of Haider¿sudpolitical breakthrough in Austrian politics during the 1990s. My aim has been to try toudunderstand this political phenomenon in the context of Austrian cultural and historicaludforces and set out the political developments that enabled Haider (almost) to achieve theudAustrian Chancellorship in 2000.udThere is already a considerable amount of scholarship available on this subject ¿ particularlyudin German. This thesis aims to enrich this scholarship by uncovering some previouslyudneglected cultural-historical aspects relating to the rise of Haider. During my research, Iudfound a rich vein of sources pointing to the centrality of Kultur in any understanding ofudpolitical-historical developments in 20th century Austria. This is certainly the case in regardsudto Haider¿s FPÖ, which actually initiated a Kulturkampf as part of their populist politicaludstrategy in the 1990s.udThis study will also add to the body of work about the growth of right wing populismudthroughout Europe in the last twenty years. More importantly however, my thesis highlightsudthe importance of focusing on local and country-specific aspects of such a politicaludphenomenon in order to explain the causes of its success. Otherwise, there is a danger ofudsuperficial or generalized conclusions being made that distract from a deeperudcomprehension of events.