The Changing Austrian Voter

Günter Bischof and Fritz Plasser, Editors

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A read ahead: From CAS XVI

Peter Gerlich

Europeanization in disguise

If it is true that political systems demonstrate their dominant characteristics during election time, one has to conclude that the political system of Austria has not yet arrived in Europe. Looking at the process of the 2006 election in a broader sense, at the campaign, at the actual voting and at the negotiations leading to the formation of a new government, one can observe trends toward an Americanization and possibly a Reaustrification of Austrian politics, but hardly any orientation towards the European Union or towards patterns of politics in other member states. All observers agree that the 2006 campaign was characterized by an import of experts, strategies and techniques from the United States. That was particularly true for the campaign of the SPÖ.

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CAS XV, Sexuality in Austria

Scholars have increasingly been investigating human sexuality as an important field of social history in particular national cultures. This volume examines both continuities and changing patterns of sexual behavior in Austria.

Sexuality in Austria reflects the broad variety of such recent research. David Luft introduces the volume with an essay on sexuality and gender in fin-de-siecle Vienna. Scott Spector traces the emergence of homosexuality in tabloids at the same time. Maria Mesner surveys the growing number of

sex counseling organizations in interwar Vienna, some driven by eugenics, others by social concerns. Ties with Margaret Sanger’s birth control movement in the U.S. are also documented. Ingrid Bauer and Renate Huber are the first scholars to treat the “foreign encounters” between Austrian women and occupation soldiers during the postwar quadripartite Austrian occupation regime in a comparative framework. Franz Eder traces the growing presence of sexual issues in post-World War II popular media and suggests parallels with the German case.

Matti Bunzl analyses the legal penalties for homosexuality in postwar Austria and the liberation of the gay movement as a result of EU pressures after Austria joined the European Union in 1995. Peter Judson analyzes the major influence of the Catholic Church on Austrian sexuality through the lens of a recent gay and sex abuse scandals in the church hierarchy. In “romancing the foreigner” Julia Woesthoff analyzes the growing presence of foreign workers (gastarbeiter) in postwar Austria and their sexual contacts with natives.

In a “non-topical essay” Katharina Wegan views the Austrian historical memory of the Austrian State Treaty through the fiftieth anniversary celebrations in 2005 and Günter Bischof analyzes the avalanche of historical exhibits and exhibit catalogues that flooded Austria in the “Gedankenjahr” 2005.

Contemporary Austrian Studies, vol. XIV
Günter Bischof, Anton Pelinka, Michael Gehler, eds.

This volume covers foreign policy in the 20th century and offers an up-to-date status report of the study of Austria’s foreign policy trajectories and diplomatic options both in the historical and political sciences. Eva Nowotny, the current Austrian Ambassador to the U.S., introduces the volume with an analysis of the art and practice of Austrian diplomacy in historical perspective. Ambassador Wolfgang Petritsch analyses recent Balkans diplomacy from his personal perspective as an EU-emissary in the Bosnian and Kosovo crises.

Historians Günther Kronenbitter, Alexander Lassner, Günter Bischof, Joanna Granville and Martin Kofler provide historical case studies of pre-and post-World War I and II Austrian diplomacy, Austria’s dealing with Hungarian crisis of 1956, and its mediation between Kennedy and Khrushchev in the early 1960s. Political Scientists Romain Kirt, Stefan Mayer, and Gunther Hauser analyze small states foreign policy making in a globalizing world, as well as Austrian federal states’ separate regional policy initiatives abroad vis-à-vis the national government, and her role vis-à-vis current European security initiatives. Michael Gehler suggests a periodization scheme for post-World War II Austrian foreign policy regimes and provides a valuable summary for researchers of both the available archival and printed diplomatic source collections.

In 2005 Austria is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its liberation from the Nazi regime and the 50th anniversary of the State Treaty that ended the occupation and returned full sovereignty to the country. A “Historiography Roundtable” is dedicated to the Austrian Occupation decade (1955-1945) leading up to this event. Günter Bischof reports on the state of occupation historiography, Oliver Rathkolb on the historical memory of the occupation, Michael Gehler on the context of the German question, Wolfgang Mueller and Norman Naimark on Stalin’s Cold War and Soviet policies towards Austria during those years.
Review essays and book reviews on art theft, anti-semitism, the Hungarian crisis of 1956, South Tyrol and regional identity in Austria complete the volume.

Günter Bischof is professor of history and director of CenterAustria at the University of New Orleans; Anton Pelinka is professor of political science and dean of the political science and sociology faculty at the University of Innsbruck and director of the Institute of Conflict Research in Vienna; Michael Gehler is professor of contemporary history at the University of Innsbruck.

The presentation of CAS volume I "Austria in the New Europe" in Vienna's "Presseclub Concordia" in April 1994. The editors Guenter Bischof and Anton Pelinka with Peter Marboe, head of the culture section in the Foreign Ministry (from left to right).

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Like most European countries, Austria does not have a strict separation between state and church. Since the counter-reformation, it has been considered a country strongly influenced by Catholicism. Austrian attitudes towards religion derive from the Habsburg experience, when emperors and the Catholic Church acted in complete unison. This new volume in the Contemporary Austrian Studies series reevaluates this age-old tradition.

Religion in Austria focuses on on relationships between political parties and religious faiths. Individual chapters analyze the impact of religion on contemporary Austria. They explore the post-World War II decline- perhaps even the demise-of political Catholicism in the Second Republic: the political pluralism, which the still-dominant Catholic Church had to become accustomed to; and the principle of political tolerance all major political parties have learned to accept. Contributors discuss the different formal (legal) links between the privileged denominations (the Catholic Church and other Christian churches, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism) and the state, especially in areas of education and public finance.

Particular emphasis is given to the two traditional Christian churches - the Roman Catholic and the Protestant (Lutherans and Reformists) - as well as to the fastest-growing new dominations, Islam and Judaism. Since a growing number of Austrians declare themselves to be officially not affiliated with any of the denominations in this age of secularism, the phenomenon of the Konfesionslosen (persons without religious affiliation) is also examined. This volume presents different approaches to the changing trajectory of religious practice in Austria, including contemporary history, political science, sociology, and law. It will be of interest to sociologists, historians, and students of religion.

How Western are the Austrian? This volume analyzes trends toward Americanization and Westernization in Austria throughout the twentieth century.

The Years of Chancellors Dollfuss and Schuschnigg’s authoritarian governments (1933/34-1938) have been denounced as “Austrofascism” from the left, or defended as a Christian corporate State (“Ständestaat”) from the right. Austria was in a desperate struggle go maintain its national independence vis-à-vis Hitler’s Germany. In the end, the Nazis invaded and annexed Austria (“Anschluss”). The essays in this volume stay away from these heated historiographical debates and look at economic, domestic, and international politics sine ira et studio.

Erika Thurner, co-editor

After Stalin's death, during a respite in Cold War tensions in 1955, Austria managed to rid itself of a quadripartite occupation regime and become a neutral state. As the Cold War continued, Austria's policy of neutrality helped make this small country into an important mediator of East-West differences, and neutrality became a crucial part of Austria's postwar identity. In the post-Cold War era Austrian neutrality seems to demand redefinition. The work addresses such issues as what neutrality means when Austria's neighbors are joining NATO. What is the difference between Austrian neutrality in 1955 and 2000? In remaining apart from NATO, do Austrian elites risk their nation's national security? Is Austria a "free rider," too stingy to contribute to Western defense? Has the neutralist mentality become such a crucial part of AUstrian postwar identity that its abandonment will threaten civil society?

Günter Bischof, Anton Pelinka, Dieter Stiefel, editors

Perhaps no country benefited more from the Marshall Plan for assistance in reconstruction of Europe after World War II than Austria. On per capita basis, each American tax-payer invested $80 per person in the Plan; each Austrian received $133 from the European recovery program, more than any other of the sixteen participating countries. Without the Marshall Plan, the Austrian economic miracle of the 1950's would have been unthinkable. Despite this, contemporary Austria seems to have forgotten this essential American contribution to its post-war reconstruction. This volume in the CAS Series examines how the Plan affected Austria, and how it is perceived today.

Ferdinand Karlhofer, co-editor

Franz Vranitzky was chancellor during ten years (1986-96) when the world dramatically changed in the aftermath of the cold war. The chapters in this volume try to assess Vranitzky's central role in recent Austrian and European history. Contributors include Richard Luther, Eva Novotny, Fritz Plasser, Irene Etzer-dorfer, Sonja Puntscher-Riekmann, Brigitte Unger, Peter Rosner, Alexander van der Bellen,and Georg Winkler.

Günter Bischof, Anton Pelinka, editors

After World War II, Austrian elites constructed a new identity based on being a "victim" of Nazi Germany. Cold- war Austria, however, envisioned herself as a "neutral island of the blessed" between and separate from both super- power blocs. Now, with her membership in the European Union secured, Austria is reconstructing her painful historical memory and national identity.

This effort in particular reflects the uniqueness of the Austrian corporation, and looks at its deep historical roots from a comparative continental European perspective. Austro -Corporatism will be of intense interest for foreign policy analysts, historians, and scholars concerned with the unique elements in Central European politics.

Rolf Steininger, co-editor

Unlike in America, the decade of the 1950's was not remembered for affluence and harmony. Austria emerged from World War II with tremendous war-related destruction and a four-power occupation that would last ten years. In 1955 Austria regained her sovereignty; however, general affluence would not be realized until the 1960's and 1970's.

This volume is dedicated to on of the country's greatest statesmen of the post-war period. Bruno Kreisky's career spans the turmoil that has confounded Austrian history throughout the 20th century. Through his Middle East
detente, and third world initiatives, Kreisky achieved world-class status as a statesman.

Günther Bischof and Anton Pelinka, editors

This is the first first volume in the Contemporary Austrian Studies Series. The contents include: "Austria and Western European Integration after World War II", Oliver Rathkolb; "Austrian Neutrality and the Europe of 1992", Paul Luif; and "The Transformation of Austrian Society and the New Europe",
G. Prisching