TY - JOUR
T1 - Reclaiming national sovereignty
T2 - the case of the conservatives and the far right in Austria
AU - Heinisch, Reinhard
AU - Werner, Annika
AU - Habersack, Fabian
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2020/3/14
Y1 - 2020/3/14
N2 - This article investigates how and why Austrian parties have (re)constructed claims of national sovereignty and brought them to the centre of political competition. Theoretically, claims for national sovereignty are directed at recovering the people’s autonomy from ‘sinister’ elites and ‘harmful’ outsiders like immigrants. As such claims vary in terms of policy content, salience, and discursive means, this article uses the analysis of manifestos and speeches to ascertain how the radical-right populist Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) constructed sovereignty claims in 2013 and 2017. Furthermore, it shows how the mainstream right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) adopted these claims, significantly narrowing the gap to the far-right FPÖ on the national and economic dimension of sovereignty, and largely renounced its pro-European and anti-sovereignist positions by 2017. In a second step, we examine whether the claims by these two parties match the preferences of their voters. Here, the findings suggest that the FPÖ’s sovereignty claims broadly correspond to the demands of its voters whereas ÖVP voters only partially express support for such claims, mainly on the national sovereignty investigating in detail the form and conditions of their occurrence.
AB - This article investigates how and why Austrian parties have (re)constructed claims of national sovereignty and brought them to the centre of political competition. Theoretically, claims for national sovereignty are directed at recovering the people’s autonomy from ‘sinister’ elites and ‘harmful’ outsiders like immigrants. As such claims vary in terms of policy content, salience, and discursive means, this article uses the analysis of manifestos and speeches to ascertain how the radical-right populist Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) constructed sovereignty claims in 2013 and 2017. Furthermore, it shows how the mainstream right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) adopted these claims, significantly narrowing the gap to the far-right FPÖ on the national and economic dimension of sovereignty, and largely renounced its pro-European and anti-sovereignist positions by 2017. In a second step, we examine whether the claims by these two parties match the preferences of their voters. Here, the findings suggest that the FPÖ’s sovereignty claims broadly correspond to the demands of its voters whereas ÖVP voters only partially express support for such claims, mainly on the national sovereignty investigating in detail the form and conditions of their occurrence.
KW - Austria
KW - Radical right
KW - nationalism
KW - populism
KW - sovereignty
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85068119552&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/23745118.2019.1632577
DO - 10.1080/23745118.2019.1632577
M3 - Article
SN - 2374-5118
VL - 21
SP - 163
EP - 181
JO - European Politics and Society
JF - European Politics and Society
IS - 2
ER -