‘Austria First’ revisited: a diachronic cross-sectional analysis of the gender and body politics of the extreme right

Abstract

In this paper, Rheindorf and Wodak provide a discourse-historical analysis of extreme-right cultural politics in Austria, ranging from the blatant racism in the speeches of Vienna’s former Deputy Mayor Johann Gudenus (now MP in the Austrian parliament) to the construction of an idealized national body in the election campaigns of the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ), its programmatic agenda in handbooks and pamphlets, and the performances of far-right pop singer Andreas Gabalier. Rheindorf and Wodak argue that such cultural politics use a wide spectrum of discursive strategies both inside and outside established party politics and that the accompanying production of an ideal extreme-right subject is informed by nativist ideology. The cross-sectional analysis demonstrates that the cultural politics of the Austrian extreme right ranges from appropriated national symbols to coded National Socialist iconography. These politics pervasively construct a gendered and racialized national body, policed by a ‘strict father’ and nurtured by a ‘self-sacrificing mother’, vis-à-vis an apocalyptic threat scenario identified with migration, intellectual and political elites, cosmopolitanism and progressive gender politics.

‘Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others’: The Hierarchy of Citizenship in Austria

“…By the same token, physiological differences may have influenced the widely shared narratives of the three minority racial groups reported in this study. The latter also contributes to the emerging literature in Austria (Gärtner 2017;Hipfl and Gronold 2011;Hofer et al 2014;Huddleston and Tjaden 2012;Krzyzanowski 2017;Pechar 2015;Reichel and Perchinig 2015;Reichel 2012;Supik 2014;Rheindorf and Ruth 2019) on the intergenerational citizenry tensions between the 'Self' (indigenous-Austrians) and the 'Other' (Austrians from immigrant backgrounds). Even if locating the source of compressed social rights and entitlements exclusively within the construct of 'race' may be simplistic (Shutes 2016), the current endeavour suggests that 'race' or 'immigrant background' (popularly used in continental European literature) is a very important factor that exposes a colour-graded hierarchy of citizenship entitlements in Austria.…”

“…Similar to Anglophone Western nations (Burt et al 2012;Ghafournia and Easteal 2018;Graber 2019;Hipp and Kubrin 2017;Pepper 2017;Polanco 2015), and non-Anglophone Western nations such as Italy (Colombo et al 2009;Policek et al 2019), Germany (Kranz 2017;Moffitt et al 2018), 'immigrant-citizens' have inherited the negativisation bestowed historically upon those who are culturally 'Other' in Austria (Zaslove 2004;Refaie 2001;Horvath 2014;Cochrane and Nevitte 2014). As a consequence, there is widespread vilification of immigrants in the media and in political discourse that is well documented (Hipfl and Gronold 2011;Messinger 2013;Rheindorf and Ruth 2019). As Messinger (2013, p. 391) noted for example, 'xenophobic reflexes dominate the Austrian political/media discourse'.…”

“…As Messinger (2013, p. 391) noted for example, 'xenophobic reflexes dominate the Austrian political/media discourse'. The widespread vilification of immigrants is frequently used to uncritically attack immigrants in public discourse, while operating as a 'shield' to defend racialized practices (Hipfl and Gronold 2011;Refaie 2001;Rheindorf and Ruth 2019). Therefore, the experience and narratives of the general body of 'immigrants' is indeed well articulated in the concomitant literature about Austria (Wodak and Matouschek 1993;Perchinig and Troger 1990;Supik 2014;Messinger 2013;Simon et al 2015;Rheindorf and Ruth 2019).…”

‘The boundaries of what can be said have shifted’: An expert interview with Ruth Wodak (questions posed by Andreas Schulz)

“…In the framework of welfare chauvinism, welfare benefits should only be accorded to 'real/true' members of the ethnos. Such parties advocate for change, turning away from an allegedly highly dangerous path leading to a future described as an apocalyptic inferno (Rheindorf and Wodak, 2019;Wodak, 2017b).…”

Affective rebirth: Discursive gateways to contemporary national socialism

“…In order to approach national socialism as a contemporary ideology rather than as a phenomenon of the past, the myth of palingenesis is examined when recontextualized within the current Swedish neo-Nazi milieu (cf. Forchtner and Kølvraa, 2017; Rheindorf and Wodak, 2019; Westberg and Årman, 2019). Here, I examine how the most prominent national socialist movement in Sweden – The Nordic Resistance Movement ( Nordiska Motståndsrörelsen , henceforth referred to as the NMR) – recontextualizes the myth in propaganda texts and leaflets targeting new members.…”