Sub-state territorial claims making by a nationwide radical right-wing populist party: the case of the Austrian Freedom Party

Abstract:

The radical right-wing populist Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) has been known for its considerable political success in national politics since the 1980s. While the party entered two regional governments recently and held the governorship in a third federal state for over a decade, it has largely remained frozen out of power in all other Austrian provinces.

In this paper we examine how and to what extent the FPÖ used territorial claims and notions of territoriality in its political mobilization when campaigning for public offices. We argue that sub-state territorial claims making occurs in regions in which ethnic and sociocultural cleavages are highly salient and where the local political system is suffering from a crisis of legitimacy.

Our findings indicate that territorial claims contributed to the remarkable success of the FPÖ in Carinthia, while no such evidence could be found in the other two cases. However, we conclude that under certain circumstances sub-state territorial and national claims can be successfully integrated by a nationwide populist party to maintain power durably.

This article is part of a special issue: Addressing the territorial dimensions in party-based populism