Author: Jack Mueller

Austria: The Struggle against the new Far Right

November 20, 2018 / Jack Mueller / 0 Comments

Prompt A)

Contemporary Austrian politics is marred by the reemergence of Far Right, ultranationalist politicians who have taken advantage of domestic and international political instability to seize power in the government. In the past these politicians have been known for their inflammatory rhetoric which has actively demonized muslims, jews, Roma, and other non ethnically Austrian minorities. Austrian law has sought to curb the influence of Neo-Nazi’s & other supportive movements through strict anti-semitism and holocaust denial laws akin to those in Germany (Foreign Policy, 2016), while working to preserve civil liberties such as the right to assembly (Freedom House, 2018). In trying to strike a careful balance which preserves basic civil liberties while refusing to give ground for Neo-Nazi behavior, those with fascist and racist sympathies have been finding ways to stretch the boundaries of the law to get away with otherwise obvious acts of hate.

Since the passing of Holocaust Denial laws in 1992 which expanded on the 1947 framework for denazification, Austria has jailed and fined individuals and organizations which have engaged in anti-Semitic or nazi behavior (JURIST, 2017). This follows a similar trend taken by other countries that either perpetrated or aided Nazi Germany during the Second World War (Bleich, 2011, 48). While Austria has punished nazi sympathizers, ironically including the current Vice-Chancellor for organizing a Hitler Youthesque rally as a teenager (Times of Israel, 2017), there is a national narrative of victimhood which deflects association of Austria with Nazi cooperation and rather suggests that they are a victim akin to other European countries and nationalities (Niederacher, 2003).

The inability for the Austrian government to fully accept its responsibility for the Holocaust and other war crimes under the Third Reich will always leave the country at a disadvantage when it comes to engagement with far right and racist movements. In a recent legal case surrounding the youth Identitarian movement, courts vindicated 10 members following their arrest for criminal association and hate speech (Vice, 2018). Many fear that the inability for the Austrian courts to firmly interpret the rule of law and define the boundaries of what is and is not hate speech will embolden the far right to act boldly down the road. Until Austria can reevaluate its national culture and accept its share of responsibility for the Holocaust, no amount of legal balancing over freedom of association and speech can stop Neo-Nazi’s from pushing their agenda.

Part B:

It is no secret that the Russian Federation has sought to influence politics throughout the western world. While their actions in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom may be better documented, they have quietly been engaged in a P.R. campaign in Austria over the last several years which has grown to fruition following the election of a coalition government in 2018 between the center right OVP and the ultranationalist FPO. What has occurred over the years in Austria is the gradual permeation of Russia of soft power which has been manifested in a variety of ways. Be it the connection between Austrian right wing news sources with Kremlin sponsorship, their support for FPO leader and current vice-chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, or the infamous Vienna Russian Balls, Moscow’s agents have been hard at work to aid far right movements throughout the country (Shekhovstov, 2017).

Traditionally, because Austrian politics has been dominated by the center-left SVP and the aforementioned OVP, Russia has been hesitant about getting overly involved with fringe right wing movements in Austria. However, this began to change as the Austrian public began to be more receptive to FPO politicians and their euroskeptic/anti-immigrant platform. Since the Russo-Georgian war of 2008, the FPO took a pro-Russia turn, engaging with leading figures in Putin’s government who exported their political, religious, and cultural rhetoric into Austria (Shekhovstov, 204, 2017).

The connection between the FPO and the Kremlin has given the OVP chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, somewhat of a link to Putin. The two of them have repeaditely met since the 2018 election and have sought to deepen the interconnectivity between the two countries, with Kurz seeing this as an opportunity to bridge the Euro-Russian divide and Putin viewing this as his opportunity to gain a supportive ally in the E.U. (Politico, 2018). Given these linkages between the current Austrian government and Putin, it is safe to say that Russia’s gamble with the FPO has paid off thus far as they now have the potential to legitimize their brand of ultranationalism throughout Austria.

Sources:

“Austria.” Freedom House. March 12, 2018. Accessed November 19, 2018. https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2018/austria.

Large, David Clay. “Germany + Nazi Denial = Austria.” Foreign Policy. December 2, 2016. Accessed November 19, 2018. https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/12/02/germany-nazi-denial-austria/.

Bleich, Erik. The Freedom to Be Racist?: How the United States and Europe Struggle to

Preserve Freedom and Combat Racism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Callan, Autumn. “Austria court convicts man for violating anti-nazi laws with Facebook.” JURIST: A Collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh. July 31, 2017. Accessed November 19, 2018. https://www.jurist.org/news/2017/07/austria-court-convicts-man-for-violating-anti-nazi-laws-with-facebook-post/.

“Heinz-Christian Strache from neo-Nazi youth to Austrias next vice-chancellor.” The Times of Israel. December 16, 2017. Accessed November 19, 2018. https://www.timesofisrael.com/heinz-christian-strache-from-neo-nazi-youth-to-austrias-next-vice-chancellor/.

Shekhovstov, Anton. Russia and the Western Far Right. Routledge Press, 2017.

Austrian Foreign Policy

October 23, 2018 / Jack Mueller / 0 Comments

Question 1) In Foreign Policy, does Austria follow the lead of France, Germany, the UK, or Spain?

Given their shared history, culture, and ethnic identity, it should come as no surprise that Austrian foreign policy has trended to mirror German foreign policy. For much of modern history since the end of the Second World War, Austria has sought to maintain an image of neutrality in the wake of their shared participation in the Nazi War Machine (FOREIGN RELATIONS). Hoping to strike themselves as a friendly and docile neighbor to both the Communist countries to the east and the N.A.T.O. alliance to the west. Their attempts to strike a balance between east and west has often drawn the ire of each side who see Austria’s attempts at outreach as duplicity (Gehler, Wilson Center)Seeking to be left to their own devices, Austria has been hesitant to engage in international debates beyond those issues that might directly effect themselves. Therefor, they’ve engaged with the European Union for the purpose of their own economic advancement while avoided being the vanguard of the integration project. As they lack the foreign policy authority to have the authority of its larger neighbors, Austria has often gone along with German politics in areas such as engagement with Russia, the economy, and migration politics.

Germany, like Austria, has gone on the charm offensive in the last several decades to repair its image in the east and west. Recognizing that in the event of a European land war between N.A.T.O. and the Russian Federation, they would face occupation and annihilation, Germany sought to balance the interests of the United States and Russia with its policy. The status of Germany as a reluctant leader has meant that the German government has been less then willing to take the reigns of control and assert European policies on the international stage (Welsh, 2015). Meanwhile, their Ostpolitik engagement with Russia has drawn the ire of other European countries who feel that German hesitancy risks enabling future threats. This has been something they’ve had to remedy as the role of the United Kingdom and France has declined on the international stage and other regional powers have tilted towards Germany due to their economic prowess.

Question 2) How does this choice appear as part of the EU-wide negotiations about Refugee politics?

During the initial stages of the 2015 Refugee Crisis, Austria’s policies reflected those from Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition in Germany. Adopting a welcoming stance towards thousands of refugees, Austria was one of the first countries to open up their borders and settle refugees as they were halted at the Hungarian border and redirected. Having settled the equivalent of 1% of their entire population in the country and granting generous government funded care packages to ease their transition into their new lives, Austrian society has witnessed cracks in their society between those who believe in taking in refugees and those who see refugees as a threat to their national identity (Kurz, 2017). While Austria had followed through with the greater European communities wishes to pass liberal policies regarding refugees, they’ve recently caved to far-right political pressures and limited the help given to refugees. Namely, the Austrian government has stripped refugees of their cellphones, large quantities in cash, and placed holds on citizenship applications, much to the chagrin of human rights watchdogs and their European neighbors (Bell, 2018). This has presented conflicts with the European bureaucracy as some have interpreted Austria’s actions as standing in direct violation of the Union’s open borders policies which prohibit the restrictions on who can and cannot enter member nations.

Sources:

Austria – FOREIGN RELATIONS. Accessed October 23, 2018. http://countrystudies.us/austria/128.htm.

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/austria-german-unification-and-european-integration-brief-historical-background

Europe Today: A Twenty-First Century Introduction

http://time.com/5068561/sebastian-kurz-austria-chancellor-migrant-crisis/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43823166

Definitions of Europe

September 14, 2018 / Jack Mueller / 1 Comment

What Defines Europe?

I’ve long understood the boundaries and definitions of Europe according to its traditional geographic location as the lands west of the Straits of Bosphorus, Ural, and Caucus Mountains. But given the history of the land and the constant comings and going of peoples not only native to Europe but to Asia and Africa, it is perhaps necessary to reevaluate the definition of Europe. In years past, scholars used to define Europe by its religious history as the bedrock of Christian control. However, that definition is difficult to support given the waining support for christian institutions across the continent and the legacy of Islam in Iberia, Central, and Eastern Europe. I believe that the best argument to provide a definition of Europe is to describe it as the lands and peoples who throughout all of history have striven to maintain and build off of the Greco-Roman societies of the ancient world.

The ancient Greek city states and later Roman Republic & Empire exported their culture, religion, and ideas across the whole of the Mediterranean world, rooting their values deep into conquered societies. But following the collapse of the Western Empire in 476 AD and the waining power of the Eastern Empire in the middle east and north Africa, some societies were transformed by new powers while others kept the legacy of Rome alive. For example, Charlemagne’s new Frankish Empire sought to be the successor state in the west and roll back the tide of the dark ages, providing a brief renaissance before his death. Meanwhile, the Byzantine Empire exported greco-roman culture to slavic nomads and the nordic/slavic city states that would become Russia. Conversely the Mongol, Turkic, and Arab conquests eroded and replaced Roman legacy for their distinctly different culture and societal makeup. In some places like Iberia and Russia these changes were temporary, while northern Africa and the middle east became the bedrock of the new cultures.

All European nations since have sought to incorporate some of this greco-roman legacy into their civilization. Be they Germanic, Slavic, Romance, Greek, Celtic etc., these peoples share in a common historical legacy that spans nearly two thousand years. Understandably there could be some concern with this definition as it can be argued that other countries might model their societies off of the greco-roman legacy. However, I don’t see this to be truly the case, given how Asian & African countries have their distinctly different heritage and former colonies in the Americas and Australia share a hybrid heritage from Europe, Africa, and the Natives. Having this connection across geography and ethnic culture is what truly defines these lands as European while separating them from their neighbors in Asia and Africa.

For my case study I will be looking into how Austria is handling the migration crisis and how it’s altered the political discourse surrounding European integration. This calls into question just who gets to be European and whether or not anyone can shed their previous identity to adopt a new one. Despite being the largest refugee crisis since the second world war, many European countries have been hesitant to let in and settle these people precisely because they question their ability to become European.

The essential argument here revolves around the Clash of Civilizations theory in international politics. Proponents of this theory believe that the distinct cultural differences between civilizations, in this case European and Islamic, prevents peaceful coexistence between those people in the same space. Though it doesn’t necessarily say that the civilizations can’t interact with one another, it heavily discourages the intermixing and liberal ideas of diversity. Of course the obvious danger of this theory is that it only emboldens racist and ultra-nationalist voices who still strive for ethno-national purity.

In Austria, where as much as 82% of the population are ethnically germanic/austrian, only 7% of the population is muslim. During the first year of the migration crisis, the Austrian government would permit 90,000 asylum applicants, before lowering the number to 37,500 for each of the next four years. Increasingly the Austrian government would enact harsher restrictions against migrants and refugees including the construction of a border fence along its Slovenian border, issuing a daily migrant cap, denying food and water for denied refugee applicants, and most recently the seizure of mobile phones from migrants. All of these actions are meant to restrict and limit the amount of non-Austrians from entering and settling into the country.

Broadly speaking, the rhetoric and actions taken across the region seem to alienate those refugees who are specifically muslim. These far right politicians are so convinced that muslim refugees will be unable to assimilate and become proper Europeans that they are trying to utilize every legal measure available to inhibit the ability for these refugees to settle in Austria. Should other European neighbors prove that integration between the two societies can be successful and peaceful, then one can only hope that the Austrian government would roll back some of these damaging policies and embrace greater humanitarian values.