This article seeks to shed light on the critical role of interdisciplinary qualities for the societal relevance of Political Science. It traces the historical development of Austrian Political Science embedded in the larger international context and by considering the cases of the United States, France, Germany and Italy. It serves as a means to demonstrate the close linkage between interdisciplinarity in Political Science and its professional, political and civic relevance. By addressing the question of Political Science's societal relevance from a historical and cross-national perspective, it prepares the ground for consecutive studies that conduct in-debt comparative analysis
The Austrian statesman Metternich is widely recognized as a leading actor in European affairs in the first half of the nineteenth century. What has been surprisingly neglected is the long-lasting impact of his nationality policy, which he devised and partly implemented within the context of restoring order after the upheavals of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. The devastation and dislocations caused by two decades of warfare gave rise to a critical historical juncture in which Metternich took the lead to form a counterrevolutionary regime and to pursue what can be termed his empire project. A state modernizer, he devised an intellectually elaborate conservative response to the French Revolution that rested on his distinction between supposedly natural nationalities and artificial nationalism. The resulting idiosyncratic governance of empire fostered a vertical integration of societies-in-the-making through the expansion of state infrastructures, while at the same time determining horizontal fragmentation along provincial and linguistic lines. Metternich’s nationality policy helped to create the ideational and institutional foundations of modern nation-building across Central and Southeastern Europe. Its legacy outlasted the monarchy and is reflected in the distinctive culturalist tradition of nationhood in post-Habsburg Central Europe.
This study explores the question of why Euroscepticism is surprisingly widespread in Austria. With the help of theories of nationalism, an analytical framework is developed that can be used to explain the significance of specific constructions of national identity for acceptance of the EU. The findings indicate that the country has a national identity constructed by the political elite. In terms of ideological content, this refers to both its exceptional economic success and its tradition of articulating collective ‘others’. Together, these two elements explain the connectivity of an exclusionary understanding of the nation, which is articulated by rightwing populists such as the FPÖ in the context of Euroscepticism.
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