THE EXTREME RIGHT AND POPULIST POLITICAL PARTIES IN AUSTRIA AND THE INSTRUMENTALIZATION OF IMMIGRANTS

Austria is one of the first countries where the far-right and populist parties
came to power by forming coalition governments. The Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), led
by Jörg Haider, became the country’s second largest party in the 1999 general elections. This
election success of the FPÖ created a shock effect in many countries, especially in Europe.
Despite this, the FPÖ managed to form a coalition government with the Austrian People’s
Party (ÖPV). The FPÖ grew stronger when Heinz-Christian Strache, took the helm of the
party after Jörg Haider, placed antiimmigrant policies and discourses at the center of the
partys’ discours. Thus, FPÖ, which achieved a great success in the general elections held in
2017, formed a coalition government with the ÖVP led by Sebastian Kurz. Not only the FPÖ,
which is classified in the extreme right and populist spectrum, but also the ÖVP, which is
seen in the centre-right, put immigration and anti-immigrant rhetoric at the center of its
campaign. Thus, the ÖVP and the FPÖ, which gradually shifted to a more populist line,
agreed on a coalition gouvernment focused on measures to reduce immigration.