Article published in:
Democracy and Discriminatory Strategies in Parliamentary DiscourseEdited by Karin Bischof and Cornelia Ilie
[Journal of Language and Politics 17:5] 2018
► pp. 676–695
Austrian postwar democratic consensus and anti-Semitism
Rhetorical strategies, exclusionary patterns and constructions of the “demos” in parliamentary debates
Karin Bischof | University of Vienna
This paper explores the relation between the use of anti-Semitic rhetoric in post-war Austrian parliamentary debate and the development of the consensus-oriented, corporatist model of Austrian democracy, the “consociational model,” between 1945 and 1955. Specifically, this paper examines the anti-Semitic stereotypes found in parliament, an arena where “the sayable” of official politics is defined, and whether such anti-Semitic stereotyping serves political-strategic purposes. The predominant pattern of exclusion proves to be the attribution of ambivalence, drawing on the repertoire of nationalist anti-Semitic stereotypes, depicting “emigrants” as “cowards,” incapable of love for and defense of their countries. The analysis shows this pattern of exclusion is rooted in an ethnicized, homogeneous, and masculinist understanding of the people – recurrent in contemporary right-wing movements and parties. It follows the lines of Carl Schmitt’s concept of the political, in which the distinction of “friend” and “enemy,” and hence, the eradication of pluralism and ambivalence, is pivotal.
Keywords: Austria, transition to democracy, anti-Semitism, topos, consociational model of democracy, ambivalence, concept of “the people”, antisemitism theory, masculinism, Carl Schmitt
Published online: 13 September 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.18033.bis
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.18033.bis
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