Austrian Elections & Politics 5.0 (Burgenland state election - January 26)

[parochial boy]

lölsterreich

[parochial boy]

As it was outlined by Kurz himself on Saturday, this was more of "the straw that broke the camel's back" moment for the FPÖ. Nevertheless, I'm still astonished at the speed this government is self-destructing now. Unless they reform radically and quickly the FPÖ will probably barred from power for quite some time now, and as far as the ÖVP is concerned it's still somewhat unclear whether they will mainly benefit from this or whether they will be consumed by it as well.

Exactly, the FPÖ's Putin fanboy act has never exactly been a secret, and when you add in the other scandals, the attempts to undermine the independence of Austria's institutions, and so on... it's not exactly hard to get to the accusation that Kurz enabled all this - and out of sheer opportunitism as well

[parochial boy]

Well if you're going to join a nationalist party, you might as well live up to a few stereotypes while you're at it

[parochial boy]

I dunno,

Einer von ihnen heißt Wolfi. Ich bin ihm begegnet, als ich 12 Jahre alt war. Er erklärte mir, dass ich niemals richtige Österreicherin sein werde, egal wie gut ich Deutsch spreche

is a pretty powerful thing to say to a child; and it's absolutely the kind of thing that you would internalise when it happens to you.

I mean yes she's reacting the wrong way, but it does provide an insight into the way that secondos react based on the ways that they are made to feel growing up in the only home they've ever had - and Austria (and Germany) seem to be particularly bad at this.

[parochial boy]

Because the Vietnamese are a much smaller community while the much larger community of Turkish Gastarbeiter (and that in itself is a pretty important term in thinking about the long term integration, or lack of it, among Turkish migrants) and their children became the "principal scapegoat" even before Erdogan came to power?

You misunderstand me if you think I am saying it is all the Austria and Germany are entirely at fault. There is the Erdogan factor; and the whole factor, of, well, neoliberalism and the way that it is a driver of communitarianism and social breakdown. But if you want people to integrate then you have to at least allow them to; and that quote is a pretty good example of the kind of thing that is going to put them off from feeling like they can, there is no real argument to be had there.

The key point being that with secondos, Germany (or Austria), is their only home - so telling them to be thankful for the welfare state, or asylum status or whatever isn't a winning argument, as that's their only frame of reference in the first place. Telling them they have a duty to be thankful to the country they were born in is obviously going to be infuriating for a substantial number of them, especially if they have to put up with racism and "you're not really Austrian" as part of day-to-day life growing up. There are easily enough anecdotal examples of this for it to be hard to deny that it is something that happens.

And Germany has its structural issues with regards to integration, enough to make claiming to be the best country in the world for immigrants pretty far fetched. Like the whole debate you have going on around dual-nationality and forcing people to give a part of their identity or else face exclusion. It's totally insane, and totally fails to understand how people relate to their homelands. And well, Germany so regularly seems to have these controversies about insufficiently integrated second-generation migrants, in a way that, say the UK (or even your famously racist southern neighbours, who eventually, begrudgingly figured out how to be an immigration destination) manages to avoid.

[parochial boy]

snip

I understand where you are coming from, even though i disagree completely.

I am however genuinely curious: Which country do you think we should model our integration policies on, when it comes to middle eastern immigrants?

Going back 40 years? Lot's differently - not assumed it was temporary migration and they were all going to go home, more flexible naturalisation laws, better anti-discrimination laws and social housing policies...

Now, I don't know, I mean, you could still do all those things - but the rise of satellite TV; the decline of long-term secure work; the increasing tendency towards self-segregation (not just ethnic, but based on social class among other things) makes it much harder to be succesful. If it comes down to it, I would say that until you start to reverse the excesses of economic liberalism and globalisation then you are doomed to create the sort of social alienation that leads to failed integration (and also, you create the push factors that lead to mass migration to Europe). But maybe that is just my own ideological bias creating a neat solution to solve every social problem. who knows?

[parochial boy]

That's actually the second poll I've seen with relatively decent (by comparison) numbers for SPÖ with the under 30s - that's kind of goes against the received wisdom about who their electorate normally consists of.

[parochial boy]

Dabei machte ich eine einladende Handbewegung zum schwarzen Ledersofa. Doch der Mann, der an die Türe gelehnt stand, schüttelte nur sanft seinen Kopf, weiter in die Leere blickend.

😂😂😂

Oh my god, he's so creepy

[parochial boy]

Dabei machte ich eine einladende Handbewegung zum schwarzen Ledersofa. Doch der Mann, der an die Türe gelehnt stand, schüttelte nur sanft seinen Kopf, weiter in die Leere blickend.

😂😂😂

Oh my god, he's so creepy

WTF is this ?

Kurz's official biography. Out next week!

[parochial boy]

Gonna have to say that the Austrian attitude towards university education seems a lot healthier than the US/UK class-ridden obsession with overpromoting entitled rich kids from elite universities. A habit that would seem to play no small part in the current mess that both those countries are in.

[parochial boy]

I actually support the constitutional law, unlike the Greens.

We need to end the cult of indebting ourselves and instead find ways each year to keep the budget balanced. This is sustainable and responsible politics for future generations.

The other options in the long run are Greece or Venezuela ...

You really don't need to run a balanced budget - as the classic example, the UK's debt as a proportion of GDP dropped from over 200% in the 1940s to under 50% in the 1990s, even though it was running a budget deficit nearly the whole time. A growing economy, and budget deficits very much help economies grow, is a far better way to reduce the "debt burden on future generations" than an ideological debt break that is really just an excuse to reduce social spending

I mean, just look at your neighbours, Germany's deficit fetishism is one of the reasons they are falling into recession. Just as an example,  DB's reputation has been ruined because the infrastructure has been negelected; and the Port of Hamburg is losing orders to Rotterdam and Antwerp because it's been starved of investement.

Anyway, apparently Vorarlberg wants to join Switzerland. As a better alternative, maybe we can give you St Gallen?

[parochial boy]

Is anyone doing TV coverage? ORF1 appear to be showing ski-jumping at 5pm...

[parochial boy]

Is anyone doing TV coverage? ORF1 appear to be showing ski-jumping at 5pm...

Summer Grand Prix ...

The relevant coverage is on ORF2 (at 4:30).

Or on Puls4 / Puls24 and ATV.

Right, clearly you Austrians have your priorities in order

[parochial boy]

ORF

ÖVP - 37,2%
SPÖ - 22,0%
FPÖ - 16,0%
NEOS - 7,4%
Green - 14,3%
Jetzt - 1,8%

Not bad, Grünen...

[parochial boy]

Besides FPÖ+SPÖ+Pilz, the big losers are the pollsters this time.

I knew there was some herding going on ...

Yeah, one of the big stories is how the polls totally failed this time - vastly underestimating ÖVP and Greens, vastly overestimating the FPÖ, who have their worst result since 2006.

Pollsters are so used to underestimating the anti-establishment right-wing parties it does appear in a few places they've actually adjusted their methods too much, now overestimating those parties support.

It was the same in Sweden last year, the Sweden Democrats were actually overestimated by pollsters.

We saw this phenomenon here a couple of weeks ago, too. And obviously in Spain a few months ago.

From what I've been led to believe, the pollsters are getting pretty accurate raw data as far as the RWPP's are concerned; but still adjusting them up as they expect to be underpolling them. Part of th reason the French polls have been pretty accurate with the RN vote is because they have relaxed a lot of the weightings that they used to apply.

[parochial boy]

That splurge of red in Carinthia, it's basically Slovenes right?

[parochial boy]

A sea of turquoise:

While may be unusual for Austria, last US election looked like this despite Clinton winning popular vote so if you have a strong enough urban/rural divide you could have a map look like this and still lose or barely win, mind you I don't think Austria is as urbanized as the US is so might be harder to replicate.

Three of Austria's 5 largest towns - Salzburg, Graz and Innsbruck, are all coloured in turquoise on the map. And even factoring in the dispersal of the left votes, it still looks like Vienna and Linz were the only substantial towns to still give a majority of their votes to the left.

But even Salzburg and Linz are not big places. Really, Austria is basically one quarter Vienna, three-quarters rural hicks.

[parochial boy]

Three of Austria's 5 largest towns - Slazburg, Graz and Innsbruck, are all coloured in purple on the map.

Turquoise you probably meant to say.

Also yes, those are the Slovenes in South-Kärnten, who had a very contentious relationship with FPÖ/ÖVP Governments in that state, especially after Haider tried to restrict their Language rights.

He may have some degree of colorblindness.

I considered that too when I wrote my response, but as someone who also grew up with a different language, I too often confuse the names of Colors on English, so I assumed it was that. The exact definitions/distinctions of Purple/Purpur, Lila and Violett is not clear in German anyway.

Or maybe I just wasn't paying attention when I posted it.

I do, however, come from a culture where speculating out loud about whether someone is disabled or not would be considered inappropriate.

[parochial boy]

What's the story behind the Greens doing so well in Voralberg?

Vorarlberg is very urban and has one of the longest Green traditions in Austria and even Europe (early 1980s).

But specifically, it's the Rheintal and Lake Constance - which is more a sort of densely inhabited sprawl than having any major population centres. It is basically geographically a continuation of the Swiss plateau, and linguistically and culturally resembles Eastern Switzerland more than the rest of Austria.

It's also fairly industrial. Specifically the textile industry in was historically strong, although it has declined enough that the Swiss side is seen seen as a bit of a redneck, rust belt land. These days, it's more the construction industry (eg Hilti just over the border in Liechtenstein).

That doesn't really help explain why the Greens would do well in Vorarlberg (indeed, they're weak af on the other side of the river); but there is probably a fair deal of cross-border commuting to Liechtenstein and Switzerland. Definitely to the extent that even mock euro-scepticism plays badly with the kind of person whose livelihood relies on being able to get over the border easily (cf the NEOS score in the state) - with the additional factor that a lot of the early Green movements grew out of opposition to motorway construction; and that region, owing to its geographical location, has a lot of motorways.