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SAIS Review 20.2 (2000) 265-271



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Review Essay

The Enigmatic Haider

Hans-Georg Betz

Politics and Personalities

Haider: Licht und Schatten einer Karriere, by Christa Zöchling. Vienna: Molden Verlag, 1999. 222 pp. DM 41.

Haider wörtlich: Führer in die Dritte Republik, by Brigitte Bailer-Galanda. Vienna: Löcker Verlag, 1995. 189 pp. DM 38.

The Haider Phenomenon, by Melanie A. Sully. New York: Eastern European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1997. 225 pp. $31.50.

On January 31, Portugal, in its capacity as chair of the European Union (EU), announced a number of sanctions against Austria. Among other things, Austria's partners in the EU would suspend country-to-country links with Austria for an indefinite period of time, drastically reduce all contacts with Austria's ambassadors, and withhold support for Austrian candidates to international posts. With these measures, Austria's partners in the EU expressed their alarm over the composition of Austria's newly formed coalition government, which includes several ministers from Jörg Haider's Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), a party that many consider to be on the far right of the political spectrum. The fear is not only that the FPÖ's new status as a government party might legitimize Haider as an acceptable and respectable politician in Austria, but also, and more importantly, that the Austrian model might prove contagious beyond Austria's borders. This explains why France, Germany, and Belgium have been particularly insistent on imposing sanctions on Austria, given their own experience with right-wing parties.

The EU's action against one of its member states was nothing less than an attempt to reverse the outcome of a democratic process, and thus represents a blatant interference in the internal affairs of a small country. The EU justified its action by arguing that Haider's [End Page 265] party is thoroughly xenophobic, if not racist, and therefore anathema to the fundamental values that the EU has been trying to project. This is a heavy charge, especially given the fact that in recent years, the major mainstream parties in most of the member states have repeatedly--and often quite successfully--used xenophobic rhetoric and promoted anti-immigrant policies to gain popular support at the polls. The Freedom Party's appeal to anti-foreigner sentiments is thus hardly exceptional, except that the party has been particularly successful in pursuing a political strategy that has relied primarily on a strong appeal to popular resentments.

Undoubtedly, the party owes much of its success to its leader, Jörg Haider, whose combination of populist image, good looks, and often strident and highly inflammatory rhetoric has made him one of Austria's most outstanding politicians of the past decade. Without Haider, the FPÖ would at best have remained a marginal factor in Austrian politics. In fact, in 1986, when Haider was elected party chairman, opinion polls indicated that the FPÖ had lost most of its electoral appeal. Yet in the national elections a few months later, under its new leader, the party gained almost 10 percent of the vote. Less than a decade later, the party had doubled its 1986 result. Finally, by 1999, the FPÖ had become the second largest party in Austria behind the Social Democrats (SPÖ) and slightly ahead of the conservative People's Party (ÖVP). Haider's secret dream--one day to be appointed Austrian chancellor--suddenly seemed no longer unrealistic.

In recent years, a number of books have appeared that attempt to understand and explain the "Haider phenomenon." Perhaps the most interesting study has come from Christa Zöchling, a journalist who works for Profil, Austria's leading political weekly magazine. Zöchling provides a comprehensive account of Haider's rise as a politician from the backwaters of Carinthian provincial politics to national--and international--prominence. She also tries to develop a psychological portrait of the man behind the politician. The focus of a second recent account of the Haider phenomenon by Melanie Sully, who teaches international affairs in Vienna, is on the FPÖ's political development in the 1990s. This contribution provides a wealth of...

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