Synaptic

This piece is a research based analysis of a country’s behavior in the contemporary global order.

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Austria declared itself neutral in foreign policy matters in October 1955, after re-instituting a constitution and becoming a sovereign nation after being occupied by the victorious allied troops after World War II. To evaluate this claim and tt)e lasting impacts on Austrian inter-national politics, one must consider Austria’s history from its once vast empire through two world wars to its current political system. This essay will briefly examine Austrian history that shaped the nations politics and political attitudes to what they are today. It will also explore Austria’s postwar declaration of neutrality and evaluate Austria’s claim of neutrality in light of current foreign policy.

Austria “has always been a junction for communication links between the trade and cultural cen-tres of Europe” (BDP Austria). It is a country with a rich history created both from its physical location in Europe, en route between France and Venice, but also because of the rises and falls in the imperial govern¬ment and mix of cultures that were integral parts of the empire. While ninety-one percent of Austrian citizens are native German speakers, there are also a significant number of immigrants who make their homes there. Over the last two decades, many of these immigrants have come from the former Yugoslavia and Turkey (CIA World Factbook). Just less than three-fourths of Austrians are Roman Catholic (Student Handbook) and there are historic cathedrals in many Austrian towns.

The name Osterreich, German for Austria, literally means “eastern realm”. This is a fitting name because of the expansive territory the historical empire covered, even though the Austria of today is about the size of Maine, with a total area of 32, 368 square miles. Today, Austria is significantly smaller compared to the area that was included during the rise of the Habsburg Empire; in fact most of Europe was included in the Empire at one point or another prior to 1900. Austrian history can be traced back almost 2,000 years when the capital city of Vienna was an important Roman military base along the Danube River (Eschellmueller). Vienna kept grow-ing throughout the Middle Ages and in the year 788, Christianity was adopted as the national religion after the area was conquered by Charlemagne (USDOS). The histori¬cally influential Babenbergs came into power in 976 and lasted through the rule of Frederick II in 1246. There was some unrest following the end of the Babenberg line with the rule of Otakar 11 of Bohemia, but in 1276, Rudolf I defeated Otakar 11 at the Battle of Durnkrut and started the reign of the Habsburg family that would last until the outbreak of World War I.

The Habsburgs ruled Austria for almost 750 years “Through political marriages, the Habsburgs were able to accumulate vast land wealth encompassing most of Central Europe and stretching even as far as the Iberian Peninsula” Empire had become stronger and wealthier as well, and the Ottoman Army surrounded Vienna. The Habsburgers and the Viennese held their ground and forced the Ottomans to retreat until 1683, when Vienna was again successfully defended from invasion (Eschellmueller). Anton Eschellmueller, a Vienna native, told this story to the Spring 2007 Austrian Political History and Current Issues class at the University of Vienna with a kind of pride that is characteristic of the way that many Austrians view their history.

Austria remained a European superpower throughout much of the reign of the Habsburgs, but there were many wars fought over land-holdings during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. At this time Emperor Charles VI and his Maria Theresa ruled Austria Maria Theresa was only able to take the throne after the Pragmatic Sanction was passed “which allowed a female to ascend when there was no male heir” (USDOS). After becoming Empress, Maria Theresa began reforming many aspects of life in Austria; the educational system is one good example. Her son, Josef II, succeeded her and continued many of her reforms.

The next big shake-up in Austrian history came during the reign of Franz Josef I, who ruled from 1848 until his death in 1916. He was the emperor during the Revolutions in 1848 until World War I. The Compromise of 1867 gave some sovereignty to the territory of Hungary and created the system of “Dual Monarchy” in which Franz Josef still acted as the head of state as the Emperor of Austria and the King of Hungary, but the Hungarians then had the power to have a parliament and be a little more self-governing (Eschellmueller).

The old Habsburg Empire declined in power and influence at the beginning of thetwentiet century. “This deterioration culminated in the June 28, 1914, assassination of Archduke (and heir to the throne) Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia” (USDOS). The assassination had larg¬er global implications as it sparked the beginning of World War I and also completely ended the Habsburg domination of Central Europe. War left the country with political and economic problems after Austria was defeated in 1918. The Empire was broken up and most of the German-speaking parts became a republic. The Treaty of St. Germain, signed in 1919, officially ended the Habsburg Empire and established the Republic of Austria (Eschellmueller). A parliamentary democracy was put in place to replace the monarchy when the constitution was ratified on November 10, 1920.

In the years following World War I and the formation of the Republic of Austria, there was growing political problems among the traditional political parties, which had created their own paramilitary organizations. Those organizations were responsible in strikes and violence all over Austria by the late 1920s and early 1930s (USDOS). Unemployment rose to close to twenty-five percent, and under Engelbert Dollfuss, a corporatist and authoritarian government came into power following similar movements similar to the way that Germany was zoned. The four-power government was administered in Vienna. The Potsdam agreements in 1945 gave the Soviets rights to the German assets in their zone of occupation. The assets included oil, manufacturing plants, and refineries. These properties were all returned to Austria when the Austrian State Treaty was signed in Vienna on May 15, 1955. It was then that Austria reinstated its constitution and became a free and independent country for the first time since 1938 (USDOS).

After the unsuccessful coup, Kurt Schnuschnigg, an ultra-conservative Christian Social Leader, formed a government and tried to get support from France and Britain against the pressure coming from Germany and Hitler’s government (Eschellmueller). He was not successful because of the authoritarian trends in Austrian government. In February 1938, the Germans renewed their threats of military intervention and Schnuschnigg was forced to accept the Austrian National Socialists into his government On March 12, 1938, in a move that was largely supported by the Austrian people at the time, Germany sent its military into Austria and Schnuschnigg was forced to resign. He was then arrested along with many other political leaders and imprisoned until 1945. This was the Anschluss, or annexation, of Austria into the Third Reich that propelled the country into the Second World War.

Austria was liberated in April 1945 by forces from both the Eastern and Western fronts. At the Moscow Conference in 1943, the Allies said that they intended to liberate Austria and help to restore it to a self-governing nation (USDOS). The Allies divided the country up into zones, capitol city, or Hauptstadt, where the statewide government is based. The provinces are all culturally and historically unique; the dialects spoken in each of them are also very unique because of the different family groups that have lived within the states. When traveling from one to another the differences in the language is very apparent. The Viennese talk about the people from Upper Austria (which is about one to one-and-a-half hours away by train) as if they were from a whole different country and sometimes have a dif¬ficult time understanding them when they speak.

The government in Austria today follows a democratic republic model and is comprised of nine independent Lander, or states. The nine states that make up Austria all funtion separately as a part of the whole country, and include: Burgenland, Carinthia, Lower Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Tyrol of other Central European countries. In this authoritarian govern¬ment, Dollfuss abolished the existing political parties that did not agree with the new governmental theory and abolished the Constitutional Court that was created by the 1920 Constitution. There was a short civil war in February 1934 that was initiated by the Social Democrats who had been excluded from the political process. Later that year, in July, the Austrian National Socialists (a sister party to the German National Socialists, or Nazis) held an unsuccessful coup d’etat and murdered Dollfuss. The Nazi leaders were arrested, tried, and received death sentences (USDOS).

The style of government that is currently in place in Austria can be compared to that of the United States in many ways. There is a federal government and also state-level governments. As in the United States, some of the laws and regulations are left up to the state governments to administer, but the federal government in Austria has a much higher degree of responsibility when it comes to national policy. Lori Thorlakson compared six federal governments in her article “Comparing Federal Institutions: Power and Representation in Six Federations” and found that Austria stands out among the six cases as a substantial majority of policy fields in the constitution are assigned exclusively to the federal level of government.

Of 40 policy fields, 28 are areas of exclusive federal competence, and a further nine policy fields are areas in which both the federal and state governments have jurisdiction. By contrast, the state governments have sole jurisdiction in only two policy fields. (Thorlakson, 9)

Many of the areas that are under the jurisdiction of the national government in Austria are ones that are regulated by the state governments in the United States. Some of the policy issue areas that are covered by the national government in Austria are health care, education and foreign policy.

The political situation in Austria has been fairly stable since the re-institution of the constitution in 1955. Political parties are important in the way that the government runs and the people are represented there, the roots of many of the parties represented in parliament today have roots going back to before the constitution was first ratified in 1920. In his study about the growing role of the parliament in Austria, Markus M. L. Crepaz hypothesized in his article, “From Semisovereignty to Sovereignty: The Decline of Corporatism and Rise of Parliament in Austria”, that the parliament is gaining more and more power because of the growing influence of the parties represented in the parliament (Crepaz, 56).

Austria is a highly politicized country, and “in a highly politicized society, every issue is a partisan one. Austria has become known as a polity especially saturated by party” (Engelmann, 89). The two main parties that are represented in parliament are the Social Democratic Party and the People’s Party. The Social Democratic Party is tradition¬ally strong in urban and industrial areas because most of its members are blue- and white-collar workers. In the 2006 Elections it won 35.3% of the popular vote (USDOS). The Social Democratic Party has historically advocated for government involvement in key industries, a full employ¬ment policy, and the extension of social security benefits. In the 1980s this party was also in favor of joining the European Union.

The People’s Party is more conservative in its ideals an policies. It advocates conservative financial policies and the privatization of much of Austria’s publicly owned industry. Support for this party comes from business owners, farmers, and Catholic groups, and is more popular in the rural regions of Austria. In 2006 the People’s Party received 34.3% of the vote (USDOS). The Green Party is gaining influence nationwide and in 2006 earned 11.1% of the vote, becoming the third most powerful political party in the country. The Freedom Party has been losing sup¬port in recent years, down to 11% in 2006, but gained some support by supporting an anti-immigration and populist platform.

The political culture in Austria and the beliefs of the people when it comes to the government have also been fairly stable since there-institution of the constitution in 1955. There has been some shifts public political focus, from one that could be described as more materialistic in the 1970s to a “post-material” mindset that began in the 1980 (Eschellmueller). The material issues included job security and social security, and an example of the later “post-materialistic” issues are those dealing with the environment In the book Austria in a New Europe, Gunter Bischof and Anton Pelinka describe what they see as the three phases of Austrian political culture thus far. The first is a historical compromise of the two great parties, which led to the second, a social liberal consensus. Bischof and Pelinka observed Austria in 1990 was in the midst of the third phase, a transitional political culture of malaise, or a deeply rooted feel¬ing of uneasiness characterized by less trust in the government (Bischof, 179). They argue that the reason for this feeling of political malaise is that Austrians have a low feeling of political efficacy, that is to say that “the average person feels like they have little or no control over public policy” (Bischof, 179). It seems as if Austria may have come out of that transitional phase in the years since 1990 because of the rise in protest voting and the growing involvement of young people in politics. There is also an increased willingness to vote for the smaller parties, which leads to more varied opinions being represented in parliament Foreign policy is one of the major policy areas that are in the hands of the federal government.

Foreign policy is by definition an outline developed by a country to explain how it will interact with other countries around the world. There are many factors that can impact a country’s foreign policy, such as whether or not that country has food security, domestic security and economic security. The Austrian Federal Assembly declared neutrality after the 1955 Austrian State Treaty that ended the occupation of Austria after World War II and Austria was once again recognized as an independent and sovereign state. In October 1955, the Federal Assembly passed a constitutional law in which “Austria declares of her own free will her perpetual neutrality.” The second section of this law states, “In all future times Austria will not join any military alliances and will not permit the establishment of any foreign military bases on her territory” (USDOS). Austria celebrates its National Day on October 26, which is the day that this law was enacted.

The big question then is: Is the Austria of today still neutral by the standards that the government set for itself in 1955? While Austria may not be individually a signing member of any alliances because of the fact that it is a member of the European Union and the United Nations and has partnered with NATO, Austria may not appear neutral anymore. In 1991 Austria granted overflight rights for the UN-sanctioned military action against Iraq (USDOS). Since 1995 Austria has also been considering being a part of the European Union’s growing security structure. Austria joined the Partnership for Peace with NATO in 1995 and participated in peacekeeping missions in Bosnia. In 2002, Austria decided to invest in the Eurofighter project by purchasing 24 Eurofighter planes; at the time this purchase was the largest military order for the country since World War II (BBC News, July 2, 2007).

Austria vowed to be independent and neutral in 1955, during the beginning stages of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. In his article, “Neutral Austria in the United Nation”, Karl Zemanek suggested that Austria only decided to declare its neutrality to gain its independence. It makes sense that the Soviets would be wary of having another ally of the United States so close to them in which US military bases could have been built By declaring neutrality, Austria eased the fears of the Soviets and gained independence. In his 1960 visit to Vienna, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev maintained that by joining the Common Market, Austria would be forfeiting its neutral position. The Austrian government disagreed: “[l]t was solely within Austria’s power to decide what would constitute a violation [to its pledge of neutrality] and what countermeasures might be in order” (Subedi, 264). This statement sheds light on some of the decisions Austria has made recently when it comes to international relations.

The treaty on European Union at Maastricht was signed in 1992 and, in part, allows negotiations for neutral European States to join the European Union. Since the signing of this treaty and the collapse of the Soviet Union the “permanently neutral States have been quick to adapt to a new political environment and to offer a modified interpretation of the obligations of a neutral State that would suit the changed circum-stances in Europe” (Subedi, 238). After all, the European Union is more of an economic alliance rather than a military one. While the Maastricht treaty lays a plan for common foreign and security policy, it does not mean that the pursuit of that common policy in certain matters is automati¬cally a violation of neutrality.

As for Austria remaining neutral while also being a member of the United Nations, it is important to note that while neutral states only have neutral obligations during war-time; they must also be mindful of the consequences that their actions during peacetime could have when it comes to a time of war.

Since permanent neutrality calls for neutrality in all future wars, a permanently neutral state must not incur international obligations which might involve it in a war or prevent it from observing and applying the laws of neutrality to the belligerent parties should a war break out. (Zemanek, 415)

Austria and other permanently neutral European nations have negotiated ways to remain technically neutral while still becoming active members of international organizations.

Austria’s foreign policy demonstrates its unique role in Europe as both hub for East and Western politics and culture and as a moderator between industrialized and developing countries. It is active in the United Nations in peacekeeping missions and provides aid worldwide. The headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, and the United Nations Drug Control Program are all located in Vienna. Many other international organizations are located in Vienna including the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, and the Wassenaar Arrangement, which is a technology transfer control agency (USDOS).

One of the biggest roles that Austria has assumed related to foreign policy is the role of “building bridges to the East.” This means that Austria is working towards increasing the level of contact and negotiations between the states of the former Soviet Union and the rest of Europe. There is a constant exchange of business representatives, students, political leaders, tourists and students between the countries.

Another factor that must be taken into account when talking about international relations is the economy of the country in question. Part of the reason that Austria has enjoyed political stability since regaining its independence may come from the security of the economy as well. According to the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook, Austria is one of the ten richest countries in the world in terms of Gross Domestic Product per capita. In 2006 the GDP grew by 3.3% and is predicted to keep growing (USDOS). The average per capita income in 2006 was 38,925 US dollars. Austria had net imports valued at 130.3 billion dollars in 2006 and exports valued around 129.7 billion dollars a year. Its major trade partners are within the European Union, the United States, Switzerland, and China. The natural resources available in Austria that make up many of the exported materials include: iron ore, crude oil, natural gas, timber, and various minerals (BDP Austria).

Austria has a Social Market Economy; this means that the economic practices combine principles of both Socialism and Capitalism. The government respects the free market idea, but there are also large-scale public services, such as health care for citizens. The economy is well developed and the people of Austria have a high standard of living, both in rural and urban areas. The government chose to nationalize many of the country’s largest businesses soon after World War II ended to protect them from Soviet takeover as war reparations (USDOS). Since the 1990s the government has privatized some of these businesses, but still operates some such as utilities, services, and transportation. The current administration under Federal Chancellor Gusenbauer plans to keep the level of government involvement about the same as it is now, not reversing any privatizations, but not increasing privatizations either (Eschellmueller).

When Austria became a member of the European Union on January 1, 1995, both its influence in international politics and its economy became stronger. More foreign investors are interested in investing their money in Austria, and Austria is becoming more internationally competitive economically. Austria is also a member of the Economic and Monetary Union, and in January of 2002, the Euro was implemented as the new currency replacing the Austrian schilling. According to the United States Department of State, economists agree that the effects of switching to the Euro and merging economies with other members of the Euro-zone has had a positive effect on the Austrian economy.

There is an old Viennese saying: “The situation in Germany is serious but not hopeless; the situation in Austria is hopeless but not serious” (Eschellmueller). This saying can be interpreted in a couple of ways and may no longer apply. When research¬ing the Austrian significance in international politics, it is important to examine the history that led up to the way that things are today. Comparing Austria today to the Austria of the Habsburgs, the situation may seem hopeless because of the sheer difference in the size of the country, and because it has joined the European Union and is active in the United Nations despite its vow of neutrality. Whatever the case may be, Austria has demonstrated its influence and significance in international politics because of its location in Europe and the many international organizations that it hosts.

Works Cited

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