Pariah Politics

Because political campaigns are won by assembling coalitions, an increasingly common political tactic is to insist that one's opponent renounce the support of some sizable group. Typically, the reason put forward is that the views and behavior of the designated group make it so reprehensible that any association with it is morally unacceptable. This tactic might be called "pariah politics."

The pariah group and its sins are generally ill-defined, with a few appalling particulars joined to a hodge-podge of good, bad, and arguable ideas. In "'Extremism,' or The Art of Smearing," (Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, pp. 173-182), Ayn Rand showed how such a tactic was deployed against Barry Goldwater in 1964. Currently, in Europe, we are seeing pariah politics used to prevent Austrian (and, by extension, other) nationalist opposition from derailing the emergence of a federal European state.

Who is Jörg Haider?

As it happens, no one need feel any sympathy for the man at the center of this storm. Jörg Haider is unquestionably a product of-and a panderer to-people who have never come to terms with Austria's participation in the Nazi horrors. Both his parents were sufficiently pro-Nazi to join the party in the 1930s, when doing so could get a person in trouble. After the war, they were classified as "small Nazis" and were briefly punished in small ways-a fact that clearly still rankles with their son.

Born in 1950, Haider was well educated, attending private schools, taking a law degree at the University of Vienna, and then rising to the position of assistant professor of law. When he decided to go into politics, Haider chose the Freedom Party, and in1979, at the age of 29, he became one of the youngest persons ever to enter Austria's parliament.

As a child, Haider had thought of becoming an actor; many say he has done just that. He began his public life as the clean-cut young man, then emerged as a dashing playboy. Sometimes, he stresses his simple, rural roots; at others, he mentions the time he has spent at Harvard. In politics, he has posed as a cosmopolitan, a pro-European, a pan-German nationalist, and an Austrian nationalist. He has been a radical advocate of the free-market, a fighter against corruption; a compassionate conservative, and a common man who sees his country being taken over by foreigners.

Personally, according to the Independent (of London), he possesses "earthy wit, natural charm, charisma, fiery oratory, and seemingly unimpeachable integrity." The newspaper concludes: "In any country, under almost any political flag, he would prosper." And it does not hurt, in an age of television, that he is movie-star handsome, a sharp dresser, and an intense physical-fitness buff: an Alpine skier, a mountain climber, and a marathon runner.

In 1986, Haider was lifted above financial worries when he inherited a large estate from an uncle he had hardly known-an estate bought for a pittance from Jews who had to flee Austria in the 1930s. Amazingly, to Americans, Haider has made political points with this ill-gotten fortune, saying it puts him above the rampant corruption of Austrian politics; in his own country, the source of his wealth is sufficiently common that it is not held against him. In 1989, Haider became governor of the federal province of Carthinia (Kärnten), through a Freedom Party coalition with the center-right People's Party, but he was forced to resign in mid-1991 when he spoke well of the Nazis' unemployment policies. In the years that followed, he concentrated on building up his party and his own base in Carinthia. Early in 1999, he was returned to the governorship, when the Freedom Party polled 42 percent in regional elections, to the Social Democrats' 33 percent and the People Party's 21 percent.

Haider and His Party

Haider's Freedom Party has its roots in the Association of Independent Voters, founded by former Nazis who were barred from voting in Austria's first postwar elections. By the late 1970s, however, it was a more ordinary conservative party, comprising professionals with nationalist leanings but also including the remnants of Austria's classical liberals. Nationally, the Freedom Party polled about 5 percent of the vote, just above the 4 percent threshold for parliamentary representation.

Haider worked in the party's youth group before entering parliament in 1979. In 1986, in conjunction with his improved financial fortunes, Haider risked everything to improve his political fortunes. The Freedom Party was then in a governing coalition with the Social Democrats, and its leader, Norbert Steger, was a Freedom Party liberal. Haider challenged Steger for leadership of the party and won. The Social Democratic chancellor then ousted Haider's party from his coalition and called for new elections, expecting the Haiderized Freedomites would fall below the threshold 4 percent and be extinguished.

Instead, Haider doubled his party's vote, to 10 percent, forcing the Social Democrats into a coalition with the People's Party. (Such an alliance is called a red-black coalition, after the respective colors of the Social Democrats and the People's Party. The color of the Freedom Party is blue.) In the elections of 1990, the Freedom Party again improved its vote, moving up to 17 percent, with its gains coming mostly from the People's Party. But the red-black coalition continued.

The dissolution of the two-party system thus proceeded apace, not unnaturally given that the partnership of the two main parties meant neither could play the role of an opposition force. In all four of the regional elections of 1991, the Freedom Party increased its share of votes. In the capital of Vienna, the Freedom Party became the second most powerful party in the provincial legislature, replacing the People's Party. In 1992, however, the People's Party candidate did win the election for the (largely ceremonial) presidency.

Meanwhile, the collapse of the Soviet empire and the break-up of Yugoslavia greatly increased the number of foreigners who were, legally or illegally, entering culturally cohesive Austria. Between 1988 and 1998, the annual cohort of immigrants rose to one-half of one percent of the total population. (In culturally diverse America, that would mean approximately 1.3 million immigrants per year. In fact, America allows only half that number.) In 1992 and 1993, Austria enacted laws to reduce the flood and to control more strictly the immigrant community already in Austria. Haider collected 400,000 signatures (in a country of 8,000,000) on a petition for still stricter laws. In response, the Freedom Party's 1992 presidential candidate, Heide Schmidt, bolted the party to set up the Liberal Forum, a more or less classical-liberal party.

In the 1994 election, the Social Democrats saw their percentage drop from 43 to 35; and the People's Party from 32 to 28. The Freedom Party increased its percentage from 17 to 22, while the Greens garnered 7 percent and the new Liberal Forum almost 6 percent. Once again, a red-black coalition was formed, but this government collapsed within a year, as the two parties disagreed over whether to restore budgetary discipline through higher taxes or spending cuts. The elections that followed produced little change. So, in March 1996, after hammering out an austerity budget, the increasingly tired red-black coalition returned once more to power.

During the next three years, renewed prosperity brought some popularity to the People's Party, but as part of the government it could not appeal strongly to the population's growing discontents. For example, following their country's admittance to the EU, Austrians began to have second thoughts about their impending loss of sovereignty. In addition, anti-immigrant sentiment continued to rise. Haider, freed of his more liberal colleagues, became the voice of this opposition, turning his party against the EU and becoming stridently anti-immigrant.

But Haider also focused on economic discontent. In particular, he attacked Austria's all-pervasive patronage system known as Proporz, which translates as "parity" or "proportionality" but is known colloquially as "jobs-for-the-boys." Intended to prevent a renewal of prewar partisan divisiveness, Proporz involves a cozy division of the huge public sector among card-holding party members: If the head of a state-owned bank is from the People's Party, he has to have a Social Democrat deputy-and vice versa. This patronage system operates throughout the economy, from top to bottom, taking in everyone within the large public sector and even people who are merely in need of a franchise or a license, right down to the level of taxicab drivers. By 1999, many Austrians were turning against Proporz, against the corruption it had bred, and in favor of the privatization it prevented.

In October 1999, a new election was held. In addition to its stands against the EU, immigration, and Proporz, the Freedom Party proposed increased privatization; a 23 percent flat tax (in a country where the top marginal rate approaches 50 percent); immediate tax deductions for business investment (unemployment was 9 percent and rising); and subsidies to families with children. The result was that the Social Democrats' vote dropped again, to 33.4 percent, their worst showing since World War II. The Freedom Party, now taking votes almost exclusively from the Socialists, came in second, up to 27.2 percent, while the People's Party (although remaining roughly steady at 26.9 percent) lost great prestige by coming in third. The Green Party also improved its standing, moving up to 7.1 percent, but the Liberal Forum was wiped out, failing to garner the threshold 4 percent necessary for parliamentary representation.

The European Reaction

Even before Austrians had finished counting the votes from their October election, other Europeans were warning them not to include the Freedom Party in their new government. If they did so, the head of the Social Democrats in the EU parliament declared, Austria would be "marginalized." The head of that parliament's People's Party said, "It would turn Austria into an isolated Alpine country." The leader of the European Liberals warned: "Austria runs the risk of isolating itself."

Austrian leaders took these admonitions seriously, but what was to be done? Three months of negotiations were held to salvage the red-black coalition one more time. But these talks founded on the Socialists' insistence that-despite their greatly diminished vote-they be allowed to hold onto the Finance Ministry and its key patronage role.

During those months, Austria's fourteen EU partners warned repeatedly that the Freedom Party should not be made part of the governing coalition. And in late January, when the prospects for another red-black coalition finally collapsed, the drumbeat picked up. Partly as a result of this outside pressure, Haider's popularity rose to such a degree that it looked as though calling new elections would merely propel him directly into the chancellorship. Searching for the least bad option, the leader of the People's Party therefore agreed to form a coalition with the Freedom Party on the condition that the People's Party would be the senior partner and he chancellor, despite his party's inferior showing.

After the coalition was formed, Austria's EU partners issued a statement declaring they would "not promote or accept any bilateral official contacts at a political level" with any Austrian government including the Freedom Party. And Belgium's foreign minister suggested Austria be ousted outright from the European Union: "I think Europe can do very well without Austria," he said. "We don't need it."

But if Europeans were plain in their actions, they were less plain about their reasons. According to John Palmer of the European Policy Center, a Brussels-based research institute, "There are now fundamental values, and a line has been crossed when someone who's expressed sympathy for the Third Reich is allowed in." Yet Haider had not expressed sympathy for "the Third Reich." In the heat of debate, he had said that even the Nazi's employment policies were better than the Social Democrats' policies. He had also spoken some kind words about soldiers of Nazi Germany, a gesture similar to President Ronald Reagan's visit to Bitburg Cemetery-which visit took place at the insistence of Germany, now a great critic of Austria. One French official told a journalist that Haider had made "a number of anti-Semitic statements" but later called back to admit it was not so. And Haider's innocence of the charge is confirmed by Vienna-based Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal.

All justifications directed at Haider personally have the additional drawback that he chose not to join the national government, preferring to remain Carinthia's governor. And on February 27, Haider further weakened his opponents' arguments by resigning as head of the Freedom Party, although a close loyalist was named to succeed him. The EU countries quickly, though with a note of uncertainty, announced that nothing had changed and that their objections were to the policies of the Freedom Party. Said British foreign secretary Robin Cook: "Our concern over what is happening in Austria has been about policies not personalities." As a matter of fact, that is quite true, although not necessarily in the sense intended.

Consider the following remark from Germany's foreign minister Joschka Fischer: "This is the first time an anti-European, xenophobic party with a very dubious relationship toward the Nazi past has come into the government of a member state."

But what is a "very dubious relationship to the past"? Mere days after the Austrian election, city-wide elections in Berlin produced a stunning triumph for the former Communists of East Berlin without provoking international condemnation of German nostalgia for that murderous regime. Armando Cossutta, a die-hard communist who is part of Italy's governing coalition and who makes no apologies for his former ties to Leonid Brezhnev, was recently identified by a KGB archivist as having been a spy for the USSR. The country prime minister suggested that Italians who cared are living in the past. And as for Joschka Fischer himself: He was once a 1960s New-Left radical who engaged in Nazi-like street violence to serve his political ends. Today, all is forgiven.

Well, what about the charges of "xenophobic" and "anti-European"? The first is simply Euro-code for policies that aim at restricting immigration. The second means opposition to a loss of sovereignty. And these are indeed the key to the Haider affair:

The Socialist International, the elite Left that rules Europe, appears to have gone berserk, but there is a logic to its behavior. The European Union now taking shape is evidently a centralized and corporatist project of the type that defines socialism. Stealthy measure by stealthy measure, each of the [fifteen] nations involved is surrendering its sovereignty and historic identity to a supranational entity. The project is driven from above. European leaders, of course, know that if the masses were ever allowed to give their opinion openly and freely, they would overwhelmingly reject the political future planned for them (David Pryce-Jones, "Heil, Haider?" National Review, March 6, 2000).

The truth of this assessment was demonstrated by the sharp drop in Danish support for the European single currency following the sanctions placed on Austria.

In short, to circumvent popular opposition to their policies, Europe's elites have been fashioning tools that allow them to by-pass democratic mechanisms without appearing overtly authoritarianism. Chief among these tools have been the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg and the European Court of Justice at Luxembourg, which employ twentieth-century conceptions of "rights" to institute liberals policies that voters would never embrace. Pariah politics is but the latest of the elite's anti-democratic tools-and so far the most blatant.

After all, restricting democracy through the use of pan-European courts at least employs the Enlightenment form of upholding rights against legislative incursions, even if a genuine understanding of individual rights has never taken root in continental Europe. But pariah politics does away with even this judicial fig leaf. It is an attempt to enact liberal politics by denouncing conservative challenges to them as morally repugnant, using any plausible means. We in America see a bit of this in every presidential campaign. We saw it, virulently, in the campaign against Barry Goldwater. We are seeing it now in the European campaign against Austria's Freedom Party, and it bodes to spread: One member of the Belgian cabinet has suggested frankly that her country simply ban all "far-right" parties. It is an ominous trend.