Belinsky Andrey Victorovich – Ph.D. in Political Sciences, Senior Researcher, INION RAS
The article deals with the fate of liberal democracy in present-day Austria, which has recently become the subject of a wide sociopolitical discussion. Social and economic issues, the 2015–2016 migration crisis and inability of the political elites to respond to the challenges of the time, contributed, on the one hand to the empowerment of the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria, and, on the other hand, led to the radicalization of the conservative Austrian People’s Party, which under its new chairman S. Kurz moved significantly to the right. The victory of both parties in the 2017 elections and subsequent negotiations between them, which culminated in the creation of a government coalition led by Kurz, marked a new chapter in the political history of Austria. As noted by a number of researchers and journalists, 2018–2019 were marked by a number of major changes in the country, which resembled the processes that had taken place in Eastern Europe ten years earlier. In particular, quite successful attempts were made by the parties of the government coalition to establish control over a number of media outlets through the so-called «announcements», a system for placing information in the press by various state authorities for a fee. As a consequence, the country faced a gradual deterioration of the situation with freedom of speech. All that resembled the events in Hungary, Poland and a number of other Eastern European countries, where right-wing radical populists had come to power in various ways and had taken control over a significant part of the press and television. Similar processes were observed in the system of public administration, where each of the parties sought to form their own informal «networks», as well as in tightening migration policy and rapprochement with the countries of the Visegrad Group. In conclusion, the author notes that, although Austria continues to be a democratic state, a number of trends have recently emerged in its domestic and foreign policy, indicating its gradual «orbanization».
Austria, S. Kurz, Ibiza-gate, Austrian People’s Party, Freedom Party of Austria, «orbanization».
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