Joerg Haider in historical perspective
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2000 16:01:56 -0600
From: Mills Kelly <tkelly@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
While I would certainly bow to Mark Pittaway's knowledge of the specifics of Haider's
rise, knowing of it only through reading the news media (Austrian, Slovak and American), I
would like to take up his second point about the deeper roots of this phenomenon. As I
have been reading the coverage of what is happening in Austria, I have been reflecting on
how much what has happened there reflects events in Slovakia and the Czech Republic...that
is, the continuity between radical populists in the following pairs: Karl Lueger--Joerg
Haider, the Slovaks Andrej Hlinka--Vladimir Meciar, and the Czechs Vaclav Klofac--Miroslav
Sladek. There may be others, but these are the ones I know best. A Slovak political
scientist, Vladimir Krivy, has already published a book to this effect on the
Hlinka-Meciar connection and argues, I think pursuasively, that there are strong
similarities not only between where there voters live(d), but also the underlying
socioeconomic and cultural conditions upon which their appeal rested/rests. [1]
My own research on Czech radical politics indicates strong parallels between those
who supported Klofac's radicals in the first decades of the 20th century and those who
vote for Sladek's Republican party today. I would be interested to hear from those who
know Lueger's supporters better than I whether the Lueger-Haider parallel is as strong?
Thus, I think the Western media are wrong when they stress continuity with Austria's Nazi
legacy...in my view it goes back into the Monarchy.
Mills Kelly
Department of History
Texas Tech University
[1] Vladimir Krivy, Co prezradzaju volebne vysledky? (Bratislava:
Institut pre verejne otazky, 1999)