Joerg Haider in historical perspective
From: Mark Pittaway
<M.D.Pittaway@open.ac.uk>
Author's Subject: RE: Query: Joerg Haider in Historical Perspective (2)
Date Posted: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 19:51:30 -0600
I am of course in substantial agreement with both of the most recent postings and I think they raise some interesting issues. First of all I would like to compliment Lonnie Johnson for his excellent and I believe entirely accurate description of the appeal of the FPOe to those who supported it - he has developed the point about the growth of the FPOe as being a response to "subjective insecurity" very well indeed. The issue of the "proletarianisation of the FPOe" described by Anton Pelinka is very important. Though the figures I have of the social breakdown of the FPOe suggest that the party's support among the working class in Austria is less than those used by Lonnie Johnson, the general tendency is not in doubt. I am reminded of an article by George Steinmetz on the patterns of support for the - by Austrian standards - small populist right-wing movements in Germany. Steinmetz argues that the post-war radical right in West Germany represented firstly by the NPD in the late 1960s was more proletarian in its support base than was the radical right earlier - thus he argues "the radical right's strongly proletarian base is thus a relatively recent phenomenon" (George Steinmetz, "Social Class and the Radical Right in Germany" in John R. Hall (ed.) _Reworking Class_ (Ithaca,1997). Steinmetz argues that the impact of Fordist production and mass consumerism created an environment in which some workers would protest against recession through support for radical right parties. The article is too dependent on theory, and one must really question the applicability of the article to the Austrian case given the lack of consistent electoral success for either the NPD in 1960s or the Republikaner in the 1980s. Despite this it is worth asking the extent to which social change eroded the working class communities that supported the culture of social democracy in industrial Austria on which the SPOe based its support. I would guess that traditional community solidarities did break down, the centralisation of Austrian unions centralised power within them taking the labour movement out of the workplace and that more privatised mentalities spread throughout the working class. I would also guess that improvements in social welfare and relatively full employment until the early 1980s sustained the SPOe allowing them to keep hold on the working class vote and enabling them to build the cross class coalition that cemented their overall majorities in elections in 1971, 1975 and 1979. The problems started for social democracy when unemployment started to re-emerge as a significant social problem in the mid-1980s and welfare expenditures came under pressure. As the welfare state began to crumble the institutions and attitudes that had linked Austria's working class and the SPOe during the post-war era fell apart. With the erosion of older class cultures - like in the rest of Europe - the link between social group and political party eroded also. While this explains the fall in support for social democracy it is at best only a partial explanation of the rise of the FPOe. It is worth placing this in a broader west European context. There are signs of working class disllusionment with social democratic parties across the continent though this disillusionment takes different forms in different contexts. In Britain it manifests itself in low voter tunrout - in 1997 while national voter turnout was 70% in traditionally safe Labour seats it fell to as low as 50%. In Flanders it has fed the rise of the right wing populist Vlams Blok which takes more votes than any other party in Antwerp. The question is then how far is Haider's rise the result of his own political skill, deeper cultural factors, or the inadequacy of the political system? I will leave that as an open question for now, but it is certainly well worth thinking about. Mark Pittaway Dr. Mark Pittaway Lecturer in European Studies Department of History Faculty of Arts The Open University Walton Hall