Of goals and own goals: A case study of right-wing populist party strategy for and during incumbency

Abstract

Using internal party documents and semi-structured interviews with over 200 activists of the Freedom Party of Austria, this article examines (anticipatory) adaptation in the intra-party and governmental arenas when this right-wing populist party switched its primary goal from populist vote maximization to office. It suggests such parties’ success will owe much to their leaderships’ capacity to identify and implement strategies and behaviours consonant with their new primary goal and to deal effectively with the inescapable tensions caused by the transition to incumbency. The article demonstrates how the FPÖ’s failures in these respects resulted in an own goal. Yet right-wing populists’ experience of incumbency is not necessarily doomed to failure. Agency remains an important determinant of success. Indeed, it appears supply-side factors may well be far better at explaining rapid shifts in the fortunes of such parties than the still predominantly demand-side approaches.

Choosing whom to betray: populist right-wing parties, welfare state reforms and the trade-off between office and votes

“…In the light of the internal struggles which had taken place within its coalition partner and its new opposition against retrenchment, the ÖVP ruled out another coalition with the BZÖ or FPÖ, and chose to engage in a new grand coalition with the social democrats instead after the 2006 elections. Since then, the FPÖ has reoriented its agenda towards a more interventionist agenda "targeted at blue-collar workers and welfare recipients" in terms of welfare policies, along welfare chauvinist lines (Luther, 2009(Luther, : 1052, relabelling itself the "social-national party" (Soziale Heimatpartei). It notably advocated policies such as payments to compensate pensioners for inflation or reducing VAT on fuel, medication and food (FPÖ, 2008: 7-8).…”

Different Types of Right-Wing Populist Discourse in Government and Opposition: The Case of Italy

“…During the last four years of the period covered in our study , the party was a member of the EFD (Europe of Freedom and Democracy) alongside other radical right populist parties. Although the LN occupies a different ideological space to FI/DPL, it was able to maintain a firm alliance with Berlusconi's parties for many years, not only in government from 2001to 2006and 2008to 2011, but also in opposition from 2006to 2008(Albertazzi & McDonnell 2015.…”

Austria's International Position after the End of the Cold War

“…63 Ironically, Jacques Poos, the foreign minister of Luxembourg that held the EU Presidency at the time, proudly announced in 1991 that the hour of Europe had dawned. 64 However, the actual record of the Union in the conflicts engulfing the former Yugoslavia was disappointing, to say the least. The EC Peace Conference on Yugoslavia chaired by former British Foreign Secretary and NATO Secretary-General Lord Peter Carrington, the EC/EU Monitoring Mission (EC/UMM) charged with supervising compliance with ceasefires and the release and return of prisoners of war, the so-called Badinter Commission tasked with deciding legal issues raised by the breakup of the SFRY, 65 and economic sanctions could neither prevent nor stop the fighting and the atrocities.…”

“…63 Based on its official doctrine of having been "the first victim of Hitlerite aggression," the Austrian government had been slow in admitting responsibility and procrastinating in making restitution payments for such World War II injustices. 64 In complex negotiations with the American government and numerous legal counsels who had filed class action lawsuits on behalf of Jewish organizations and victims 65 , the Schűssel government managed to come to terms in record time and signed agreements with the Clinton Administration in its final days in office. Stuart Eizenstat, the Undersecretary of the Treasury and Clinton's chief negotiator dealing with Holocaust era assets, was impressed with personal Schüssel's engagement in the details of the "substantive negotiations […] underscoring both his knowledge of the subject and its extreme political sensitivity."…”

“…All things considered, alienation between the group officially representing the party and the fundamentalist faction acting behind the scenes increasingly eroded the party's unity. 64 -Last but not least, it was the party leader himself who could not resist counteracting the policy of those very representatives he himself had nominated when negotiating the coalition agreement. Alone, the fact that at the request of Haider the party chairman was replaced five times between 2000 and 2005, indicates his unwillingness to abandon his claim of being the one and only real party leader regardless of the position he formally had at the time being.…”