Talk Elections

Germany and Austria are neighbor countries. They have the same language. In the 19th century, Austria considered the possibility of joining the "Big Germany".

What are the main similarities and the main differences between Germany and Austria? Besides the obvious, of course, that Germany is more populous and powerful.

Germany is more fiscally conservative, whereas Austria is more socially conservative.

Austria used to be almost entirely Catholic, while Germany has both a big Protestant and a big Catholic population, which has been relevant in its political history and in the formation of a national identity.

People in Germany don't tend to lock people up in basements.

Austria is probably more like Bavaria than Germany as a whole. :P

That's totally wrong of course. People are locking up people in basements all around the globe.

There have been recent cases in Ohio, California and Germany, just to  mention a few.

There are probably 100x more people locked up in US basements than in Austria ... (not including the CIA black sites) :P

On the question:

Austria is to Germany roughly what West Virginia is to Virginia.

Canada vs. US would be a similar comparison, but that's not as good as WV vs. VA

Like WV, Austria is more conservative and rural than VA and Germany.

Also, with the FPÖ being much stronger here recently (like in WV, where blue-dog Democrats are now voting Republican), it's another good comparsion. The FPÖ is also picking up former and current blue-collar workers. In VA and Germany that's not the case to this extent.

I've always viewed Austria as more sophisticated, aristocratic, "old school" Europe (as well as very Catholic), the last remnant of an ancient dissolved empire, compared to Germany's industrial, tech-heavy, modern, born and shaped by recent times nation-state. When I think of Vienna I think of sophistication, elaborate architecture, and Beethoven. When I think of Berlin I think of the 1980's punk rock culture teenagers who then grew and became successful but lonely business people.

I tend to think of Austria that way, but what I do not understand is why Austria is much more left election-wise.

Very interesting...... I love both nations but I especially loved Vienna when I was there....

The modern (19th century) idea of Germany is not thinkable without a German people, which was mainly defined by language. But the idea of a German people was there before a modern state called Germany (or German Empire) came into existence.
With Austria it's the other way round. Austria was an archeduchy which became the core of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and its subjects were the Austrians.

The difference between Austria and Bavaria election-wise in my opinion can partially be explained by the following reasoning. Normally the national level is the most important level of political alignment. On the most important level dominant-party systems are rare. Japan might come to mind. India and Israel had dominant-party systems for a generation or so after independence, but then changed. South Africa might follow. Cold War Italy was some kind of an anomal side equilibrium.
Austria's party system is similar to many other developed democracies, since there is no dominant party. The situation with a far-right opposition party and grand coalitions is becoming quite common now, Austria was the avantguarde for this.
Bavaria is not an independent country and hence its party has to be seen in the context of the (historically relatively) balanced German party system. If Bavaria was an independent country it might have developed party system similar to Austria.
If in some scenario of alternative history Austria would have become part of Germany, it might have developed a Bavaria-like party system, with the ÖVP absorbing the Third Camp and various anti-centralists.

Not very relevant, but if Bavaria was an independent country, it'd likely be a monarchy. They actually rejected the Grundgesetz initially for this reason (and questions of autonomy)-- the Wittelsbach pretender was immensely popular at the time.

e: Makes you wonder what an 20th century Austrian state with a monarchy would have been called. Kaiserthum is far too bombastic, while Archduchy is underwhelming. There never was a "Kingdom of Austria", though.

Since a post WW1 Austrian monarchy would in all likelihood been a continuation of the previous one, of course Austria would have stayed a Kaisertum. Your point of far too bombastic makes sense obviously, but this is Austria we are talking about - faux bombasticism and grandeur of days past is kinda our thing.

Yes, having been to Vienna you'd think they controlled a whole lot more than a chunk of Central Europe... and it was same thing in Budapest!

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Believe it or not, Buda Castle is actually largely an empty shell (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=13646262&postcount=22) stripped of its original neo-Baroque ornament (http://www.autregiskkt.t-online.hu/varme.jpg) (which is planned to be restored), while the Hofburg is missing an entire unbuilt wing (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Rudolf_Ritter_von_Alt_007.jpg)(which some have recently contemplated building). The fact this duplication was not the end of Austrian ostentation (in Vienna there are two large palaces-- the Belvedere and Schwarzenberg--jammed into the same park!) really tells you about the Habsburg frame of mind. One imagines what they would have done had they gotten their hands on a colonial empire...

On topic though, it is relevant to remember that the entire Austrian identity was formed by the idea that we are anything but German, that we are somehow different from them. Nations and peoples usually have some sort of defining principle, be it language (Italians, French) or some sort of (long) common history (Belgium, Switzerland...). Austria, in relation to Germany, lacks that, there was nothing really dividing us, so when they started to plant the idea of an Austrian nation and Austrian nationalism into people's head after WWII, they had to start with the only thing that came to their minds - creating an artificial notion that we are not Germans, we are not like them; and which sadly (then conveniently) also heavily included the notion "we are not Nazis", giving Austrians in their mind a cart blanche on denying their part in the crimes of Nazism.

That isn't to say that there are no or were no differences of culture or mindset between Germany and Austria. Largely however, they were artificially created after WWII to forever bury the possibility of a second Anschluss.

An emperor for 8 million people. Ridiculous...like the notion of Austrian nationhood.

I kid, I kid.

Yes, this does sound quite accurate to me. Whether in 1918 or in 1945, it's clear that Austrians would have willingly opted for Anschluss by a wide margin. Nations are funny things...

Oh, and also, I was imagining a post-1945 restoration rather than a post-1918 rump.

Then it would still have been the Kaisertum, for matters of getting the image of a glorious Austria of old days back to the people (which would have been another means to create an Austrian identity) Königreich probably would have been viewed as too un-Austrian, too German; and if there's one thing Austria was never (say since 1945) too fond of it's the idea of something being "too German"

Germany is a proper country. Austria is a surreal union of an ancient imperial capital and a couple of hick provinces most of which aren't even part of said ancient imperial capital's hinterland.

Partly right, at least up to Napoleon. Said capital's hinterland, let's define it as Cisleithana, shall we! did include all of modern Austria (well apart from the Burgenland), however, modern (German)-Austria doesn't include all of these hinterlands even if those being divided by language lines (ever heard of South Tyrol, the Sudetes, Brno and Maribor?). Not that I want to undertake some good old historical revisionism here (quite a strong case could be made for South Tyrol though, if people wanted), but just pointing that out.

I personally think the saga of South Tyrol is not quite finished just yet.

correct me if I'm wrong but I recalls the Allies forcing as part of the post-war settlement that Germany and Austria will not be united.

is there a constitutional barrier to this if one day they do decide to walk that path?  

You left out the fact that the Belvedere is actually two palaces, so that makes it three :P

That depends quite on the progress/regress of the European Union, I would say. As long as Europe is unified as much as it is at the moment, or even more, I seriously doubt that much will happen on that front. South Tyroleans actually are far more privileged at the moment being a nearly fully autonomous province of Italy than they would as just another state (or as just part of just another state) of Austria. Should however things change on the European front, I'd wager that the whole affair could take another turn, you are right about that.

Who knows, maybe all Tyroleans together free ourselves from the seven hundred years of foreign dominion, anyway if from Rome or Vienna :P that was obviously just a joke, notwithstanding the fact that Tyrolean identity is actually far more natural, historic and to an extent stronger than Austrian identity

I don't know if there's anything in the constitution, but that is correct. I highly, highly, doubt it'd ever happen today, anyway. I don't know if you can even find proponents of the idea in the FPÖ these days (a significant portion of the old FPÖ's were ardent supporters of another Anschluss).

Some very few, Tender can correct me if I'm wrong, but if I remember correctly Johannes Gudenus or some other guy like that said something on this some time ago. Not sure though.
But yeah, from today's point of view it will obviously never ever happen, not a chance.

I was mostly being facetious, but can you really argue that Tyrol counts as Viennese hinterland? Or even Styria for that matter, though of course only parts of both historic provinces are even in Austria today.

Burgenland is hilarious though. What do we even call this strip of land? It has no name! Wait! It has some castles. Castleland it is!

No, of course not, the "Viennese hinterland" is no bigger than Lower Austria; but I decided to use your facetious terms as well, if more for "humour" than anything else.

But you are right, Tyrol is just as much a seperate cultural entity as it is part of the Austrian cultural entity, for lack of better terms. No wonder, given the sense of Tyrol as something of a cross-border nation/region elevating us above the other Austrian states in terms of "we're so special", if you can get my point.


It actually wasn't even named after the castles. It was named after the cities of Sopron, Bratislava and Mosonmagyarovar, which in their German names all have -burg as ending (Ödenburg, Pressburg, Wieselburg). The name Burgenland thus comes from cities that aren't even in it (anymore), so that should give you a perfect view on how important it is :P

I think that Wien is for Austria and Berlin is for Germany the same as New York City is for the USA

A city that is very diferent to the countryside

Just checked, the Austrian State Treaty signed by the Allies and the second republic forbids unification with Germany

So what is next? How similar are France and Belgium? How different are they?

:)

If you draw a line down the middle...

If not for Napoleon's defeat Wallonia would probably be part of France. It may still be yet...

Why would Wallonia even want to be part of France? No matter how rough the past few decades have been for the place you only have to nip across the border to see how much worse it could be: as a part of France the area would not just be a postindustrial basketcase, but an ignored postindustrial basketcase.

How about US and Canada? Or US and UK?

It was a joke. Those examples are not funny.

I think the comparison of Wallonia and France with Austria and Germany are quite interesting, mostly because it show the difference. Wallonia outside the occassional occupation have never been under France, and is in my opinion much more cultural German than French. Austria on the other hand was the centre of German culture for centuries, a fully independent Austrian identity have only developed after WW2.

But where I think Austria and Germany differ, are what kind of states they are. Austria are the remnant of one of the old dynastic states which dominated Europe for a millenium, while modern Germany as a state (not as a nation) are a 19th century construct created to large extent by popular demand.

France produces wine and Belgium produces beer

Apart from the German-speaking area in the east of Wallonia, this is simply untrue. Wallonia is culturally most similar to northern France.

Northern France produce beer and no wine.

As nations do - since nationalism, which itself was a clandestine internationalism - not exist any longer, we can say objectively, that Austria was german: FAUST's pantheism (deifying hic et nunc) and romanticism (disdaining hic et nunc) was present in the austrian SubSubStyle of the southgerman BaroqueSubStyle, in GRILLPARZER or v.HOFMANNSTHAL. (But perhaps Austria was some kind of "Germany's EmergencyExit"?)

lol

Define "Northern France". Is it merely Picardy and Artois? Champagne is hardly central, much less Southern.

One could admittedly argue, however, that it would be more "logical" for Nord départment to be be in Belgium rather than in France,

Yes, Picady and Northern. Perhaps Normandy too. I would say Champagne is Eastern.

jao

I thought about posting that the main difference is that Germany can play good football, while we can't ... but that's not true anymore these days (http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/sep/08/euro-2016-roundup-austria-sweden).