Populism in Public Office – The Case of the Austrian Freedom Party

The Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) is remarkable not only for its enduring success as a rightwing populist party since the 1980s but also for its participation in government at the federal and state level. Besides the better known cases of the FPÖ’s participation in the national government (2000-2006) and the provincial government in the state of Carinthia (1999-2013), the party was able to enter new regional level coalitions, first with the Social Democrats in the province of Burgenland (2014-present) and the Christian Democrats in the state of Upper Austria (2015-present). These new developments in addition to the previous record provide an excellent opportunity to study party adaptation both across time and settings to draw a broader picture of the behavior of rightwing populist parties in power. Especially the state of Carinthia in which the Freedom Party controlled the governorship under Jörg Haider for many years and was able to engender wide-ranging political changes—dubbed the “Carinthian Model”— provides an instructive and under-researched case to assess whether there is clear evidence of a distinct populist form of public politics. Drawing on various indicators of mainstreaming such as those developed by Akkerman et al. (respect for the rules of the game; expanding socio-economic agenda, severing extremist ties, etc.) the proposed paper will examine in a first step the effects of government participation on the Freedom Party in terms of moderation. Besides its programmatic orientation, the changes in party organization and cohesion will also be considered as we expect the FPÖ to have reacted to the challenges of public office by mitigating policy positions and reorganizing internally. In a second step, the paper wants to assess the effect of a rightwing populist party in government on public policy. This will be accomplished through a systematic analysis of position taking (prior and during public office; i.e. through party manifestos and public statements) and an examination of policy changes and legislative outcomes traceable to the Freedom Party. Finally, the analysis seeks to ascertain the overall effect of a populist party in government on the political climate in general and the relation to other political parties, especially the mainstream parties. By analyzing several recent state and federal governments in which the FPÖ played a significant role, we are able to identify the political implications arising from that party’s incumbency. In doing so, we hope to address a gap in the literature on the political impact of populists in public office, not only at the national level, but also at the state level, which arguably serves as both a staging ground and political laboratory of sorts for achieving national office.