[Editor's Note: A slightly different version of this essay was published
by the AICGS Globalization Project and is available at
http://www.aicgs.org/IssueBriefs/ash.html. The Editors thank Professor
Ash for providing the list with this account of recent developments in
Austrian politics.]

LETTER FROM VIENNA
by Mitchell G. Ash, Professor of Modern History, University of Vienna

Contrary to the impression some American readers may have gotten from
overheated early media coverage, SA storm troopers are not marching in the
streets of Vienna.  The only version of Hitler to be seen is a cabaret
performer who stepped out of a not very authentic white Rolls Royce
(rather than a black Mercedes) at the Opernball on March 2 disguised as
the Fuehrer, greeted his "Volk" and enjoyed a few seconds of fame on
international television before being arrested.  For now, at least, the
streets belong to those opposed to the recently installed right-wing
coalition between the conservative People's Party (Volkspartei, or VP)
headed by Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel and the right-wing Freedom Party
(FP), formerly headed by Joerg Haider.  Indeed, the new government went to
the swearing in ceremony by way of an underground passage to avoid
thousands of protesters waiting outside the President's office.

On February 19, a demonstration against the coalition, by all accounts one
of the largest in the history of postwar Austria  (150,00 according to the
police, 250-300,000 according to the organizers), took place at the
Heldenplatz, a large open square near the former Imperial palace in
Vienna.  The organizers, an extra-parliamentary group called the
"Democratic Offensive," chose the location deliberately, as a
counter-symbol to the mass rally at the same place that welcomed Hitler in
1938.  (Another, still larger demonstration called the "sea of light"
[Lichtermeer] was held at the same place to protest against an
anti-foreigner referendum called by the Freedom Party in 1993).  The
demonstration was peaceful, due mainly to effective cooperation between
the organizers and the police, who intercepted a small number of rowdies
before they could make it to the Heldenplatz.  The atmosphere was
generally light-hearted, due to the size of the crowd and to an admixture
of political entertainment.  Cabaret artists declaimed doggerel from the
podium: "Schuessel - gebrochene Versprechen.  Haider. Gesprochene
Verbrechen" (Schuessel - broken promises; Haider - spoken crimes).
Artists and writers took a prominent role in the proceedings, as they have
from the start.

The important point to remember is that the protests are directed not only
against the person of Joerg Haider, but also against the participation of
the FP in government.  Since Haider became party head in 1986 - the year
of the Waldheim affair - the Freedom Party has transformed itself from an
uneasy mix of old Nazis and economic neo-liberals to a modern right-wing
populist movement of the kind that can be found throughout Europe.  The
basic ingredients of its recipe for success differ little from those of
other populist movements.  The FP pulls in support from wide variety of
groups: older workers who fear pension crisis, middle-aged workers fear
foreign competition, young people who are tired of the stability-oriented
policies and horse-trading of the former coalition and impressed by
Haider's dynamic, macho media image.

Freedom Party spokespersons now emphasize the neo-Thatcherite,
pro-business side of the party program. (See, e.g. comments in Roger
Cohen, "Haider's Success Story: Turning Politics into Marketing,"
International Herald Tribune, March 4, 2000).  But Haider's inflammatory
comments in praise of the "orderly labor policy" of the Third Reich and of
the "upstanding" character of Waffen-SS veterans are well known.  His
alleged apologies for them are hedged with qualifications, and xenophobia
remains prominent in the party's mixed bag of messages.  It was not by
accident that posters appeared in Vienna during the fall election campaign
with the slogans against "foreigner overload" (Ueberfremdung), using a
term that evokes links with the Nazi past.  Recent analyses have clearly
shown that implicit - though not explicit - Anti-Semitism remains a
feature of Freedom Party discourse (For examples, see Ruth Wodak, "Wer
echt, anstaendig und ordentlich ist, bestimme ich!" Wie Joerg Haider und
die FPV Oesterreichs Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft beurteilen.
Multimedia [Zeitschrift der Oesterreichischen Bischofskonferenz], February
15, 2000). The resonance of such rhetoric may be due to specifically
Austrian circumstances.  But the fears of foreign competition, and of
change in general, that the FP addresses are real enough and hardly
limited to Austria.  Because the established European parties have done an
inadequate job of addressing them, the potential tapped by Haider is
available everywhere in Europe. Overly simple equations of Haider with
Hitler only trivialize Nazism and do little to advance awareness of what
is at stake politically.

Haider himself has no position in the new government, which includes six
ministers from each party; but he is plainly in control of his ministers,
who apparently plan to travel regularly to Klagenfurt, the capital of
Carinthia, to take marching orders.  Haider resigned as party chief on
February 28 to great fanfare, passing the position to his trusted
lieutenant, Vice Chancellor Susanne Riess-Passer; but he remains a member
of a "coalition committee" that will approve all legislation before it
goes to Parliament.  His resignation is plainly a tactical maneuver
designed to reduce foreign pressure on the government to some extent and
to give him more room to criticize it seemingly from the outside while
continuing to exert influence behind the scenes.  The move may backfire in
the longer term, if Haider's erstwhile marionettes use the chance to
establish independent bases of support.

Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's role has been obscured by the worldwide
attention to Haider.  Plainly he thought he was very clever to maneuver
his former coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SP) and their leader,
then-Chancellor Viktor Klima, into an impossible negotiating position and
then turn to the FP, with which "informal discussions" had been taking
place all along.  The Social Democrats accuse him of putting his personal
ambition ahead of the interests of the country, but that is hardly a new
phenomenon.  More serious is Schuessel's apparent failure to anticipate
the vehemence of European reaction, despite the fact that he was Foreign
Minister for the past five years.  He and his new Foreign Minister, Benita
Ferrero-Waldner, formerly State Secretary in the Foreign Ministry, now
confidently proclaim their ability to represent the country as a whole and
thus put Haider's undisciplined remarks in perspective.  Others suggest
that the "Haiderization" (Verhaiderung) of Schuessel has already begun,
since he has little choice but to defend his erstwhile colleague while he
defends Austria.  Some claim that Haider has an interest in maintaining
the coalition long enough to demonstrate that his party can govern, but no
one knows how long that may be.  Others argue - and his recent resignation
as party chief supports this view - that he will attempt to establish his
independence with regular provocations from without and will find an
excuse to bring down this government when he thinks the time is right,
then ride into Vienna as head of the strongest party with a claim to the
Chancellorship he has been seeking his entire political life.  The current
heads of European governments are adamantly opposed to that scenario.

One of the slogans at the February 19 demonstration, "Europe is not a
foreign country," points toward the broader issues at stake here.  In
reaction to the freeze on bilateral relations ordered by the heads of the
remaining 14 states in the European Union (EU), Chancellor Schuessel
expresses outrage at alleged external interference in Austrian affairs;
but as a member of the EU Austria has accepted such "interference" in a
wide variety of issues since 1995.  The present crisis is only the latest
step in the country's long farewell from its earlier status as a happily
neutral island in the Cold War.  In fact, the country faces three
challenges at once: a new world economic order characterized by harsher
competition, for which much of the work force is by no means prepared;
European integration beyond previous economic links with Germany; and the
impending eastward expansion of the EU, exacerbated in this case by the
fact that Austria shares a common border with four of the countries slated
for EU eventual inclusion (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and
Slovenia).

In addition to the obvious political and economic tensions involved, a
psychological dimension of the situation is hard to overlook.  Austrians
have accepted paternalistic political leadership since the Habsburg era,
and old habits die hard.  A recent social history of 20th-century Austria
is quite aptly titled "The Long Shadow of the State" (Ernst Hanisch, Der
lange Schatten des Staates : 1890 - 1990. Oesterreichische
Gesellschaftsgeschichte im 20. Jahrhundert [Wien: Ueberreuter, 1994]).
Austrian Social democracy has been statist in orientation since its
inception, and the economic wing of the People's Party has been hardly
less so in the postwar era.  During the decades in which one or both of
these parties has governed Austria, a large majority of  the population
has become quite used to a situation that has generally been quite
comfortable for them.  Access to benefits and social problem solving comes
mainly through the state, and access to the state comes primarily through
affiliation with one of the two larger parties and/or the
corporatistically organized "chambers" of workers and employees - the
so-called "social partners."  This "Austrian model," which has roots in
the authoritarian corporate state (Staendesstaat) of the 1930s, has long
been celebrated as an effective recipe for social peace, despite the fact
that its democratic credentials are questionable because it significantly
weakens the role of parliament.  But two of the central conditions for the
model's success - in addition to the economy's close ties with Germany -
were the country's relative isolation and political neutrality.  Both are
now ending, and no one seems to be coping with this fact very well.

Four contradictions can be detected in the present situation:

1. It is commonly stated in foreign press accounts that the current
coalition is an expression of "the people's will" (see, e.g., Melanie A.
Sully, Beyond the Backlash: Austria's Haider Poses Less of a Threat Than
Some Reactions He Provokes," The Washington Post, February 20, 2000).
Isolde Charim, a philosopher and one of the leaders of the "Democratic
Offensive," takes an extreme position when she claims that the government
is "legal, but not legitimate" (Isolde Charim, Neulich unterm
Verfassungsbogen, Kommentar der Anderen, Der Standard, February 26, 2000),
but she nonetheless has a point.  There is a fundamental difference
between the mathematical majority for the present coalition and the will
of the voters, many of whom voted against the previous government, but not
for this outcome.  Schuessel reversed his party's declining fortunes at
the last minute - achieving a gain of five per cent in one week - by
promising to go into opposition if his party came in third, which it just
barely did.  Loud cries of betrayal followed the party presidium's
decision to reverse course in December, but the will to power quickly
silenced these voices.  Many FP voters also intended to send a protest
message to the previous coalition, not to overturn it.  Whether party
leaders can maintain discipline with such relatively weak support remains
unclear.

2. The extra-parliamentary opposition has its own problems.  At present it
is supported by a spontaneous outpouring of popular protest aided by
creative use of the Internet and by the organizing ability of the
socialist segment of the trade union movement. But it is by no means clear
whether a resistance movement can be sustained, nor what the goals of
such a movement might be. Demonstration speaker Robert Misik, a
journalist, confidently proclaimed that this event was the beginning of
the end of the coalition, and claimed to see a majority beyond the current
coalition, but neither he nor any other leader of the "Democratic
Offensive" has yet shown where such a majority might be found in the near
future.  Support for the Greens has risen spectacularly since the new
government took office, thanks in part to the calm style and expertise of
their leader, economics professor Alexander van der Bellen. This makes a
new color scheme, red-green, a political possibility for the first time in
Austria.  But many Social Democrats still favor the tightly restrictive
asylum and immigration policies of former Interior Minister Karl Schluegl,
which differed little in substance from those advocated by the FP.  The
Greens will hardly agree to govern with such people.  Another speaker at
the Heldenplatz, Harald Krassnitzer, a television actor, reminded the
Social Democrats that the voters had found them wanting as well (they lost
more voters who stayed home than they did to the FP), and called on them
to become a genuine opposition party.  This they have since begun to do
under a new young leader, Alfred Gusenbauer, who is only 40.  But the
rebuilding process may take longer than the extra-parliamentary opposition
can wait, and whether the new leadership can or will collaborate with the
Greens remains to be seen.

3. Most obvious are the difficulties resulting from the reduction in
bilateral relations imposed by the European heads of state. Both the
swiftness and the severity of that response helped to galvanize the
opposition inside Austria, but it is open to serious objections.  First,
there was little public warning, nor any clear indication in advance of
how the Austrian parties might have been able to avoid the sanctions.
Proceeding in this manner reinforces the widespread view of the EU as an
elitist club, despite the fact that the measures explicitly excluded
bodies affiliated with the European Commission (for further discussion of
this issue, see Tony Judt, "Tale from the Vienna Woods," The New York
Review, March 23, 2000).  Indeed, despite the appearance of wishing to
create a cordon sanitaire separating the Austrian government from
"Europe," Joerg Haider himself, as governor of Carinthia, has long been a
member of the relevant EU regional bodies, and no one has proposed that he
be excluded from them.  Second, and equally important, is a widely noted
problem of classical diplomacy - the heads of state acted in such haste
that they apparently prepared no contingency plan to step back from these
sanctions without loss of face.  (In East Central Europe, most governments
have adopted a wait and see attitude, protecting their interest in EU
expansion. That their worries are justified has been shown by an interview
with Hungarian television, in which Joerg Haider stated that his party
favored EU expansion, but only after wage levels had been equalized.  The
Czech Republic joined the EU nations in freezing relations after Haider
stated in another interview that his party favored compensation for
Nazi-era forced laborers - and also for those dispossessed by the Benes
decrees in the late 1940s). The existing measures may hold until some time
next year, that is, until the end of Belgium's term as chair of the
council of EU heads of state, but it is doubtful that they can be
maintained much longer than that.

4. A final contradictory element in the mix is the rush by
non-governmental organizations and individuals inside and outside Europe
to boycott events in Austria.  The impulse to do so may be understandable
at an emotional level, but it is unclear what concrete political impact
such unorganized and indiscriminate moves will have.  The impact within
Austria thus far appears to be negative.  Cancellations of conferences,
lectures, and even school exchange programs are bound to provoke a
backlash among Austrians, whatever they may think of the FP.  It is hard
to avoid the impression that some people, particularly those who imagine
themselves to be politically progressive, are engaging in knee-jerk
reactions, or, worse, are acting in ways that make themselves feel
comfortably righteous rather than bothering to learn enough about
political realities on the ground to be of help to the opposition.
Specific actions designed to affect politically influential branches of
the Austrian economy may be worthwhile, if they are carefully planned, but
there is as yet no sign of such planning beyond concerted diplomatic
snubbery.  In the realm of academic and scientific cooperation, or with
respect to the many non-governmental groups that have been trying for many
years to raise public awareness of Austria's Nazi past, boycotts only
damage those who need assistance most.

Whatever may happen to resolve these tensions, the mass movement against
the new government is not likely to hold together much longer.  The rapid
collapse of this coalition appears unlikely, despite the obvious weakness
or even incompetence of most of the FP's ministers, because there is no
viable alternative in the near term and new elections could strengthen the
Freedom Party still further.  The sudden disappearance of Joerg Haider
from the European political scene is even more unlikely.  He is not the
provincial phrasemonger that many wish him to be, but a well-educated
jurist and an extremely clever tactician; that is what makes him so
dangerous.  The Austrian crisis is also a European crisis, and it will not
be over soon.

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