Parties of Civic Right in Austrian Party System after 1986

The article deals with the position of the Austrian parties of civic right. Both People’s Party (ÖVP) and Freedom Party (FPÖ) are categorized to this family of parties. Many politicians and scholars presume that Freedom Party is a populist formation of extreme right, but the whole tradition of Austrian „third camp” is characterized by both liberal and nationalist programmatic and rhetoric points and these points are undivisible. The Freedom Party of Austria belong to the civic right parties from this point of view. According Sartori’s later typology of antisystem parties could be FPÖ marked as an extreme party, but in this special case it doesn't mean that this party is undemocratic or even antidemocratic. The article continues with the analysis of characteristic features of Austrian party system and patterns of party competition after the 1945 and concludes that the logic was changed from the bipartism to the moderate pluralism after the elections in 1986. The core of the article deals with the question of adaptation of People’s and Freedom Parties to the new conditions. Author illustrates the advantages of Freedom Party in the Haider’s era as an opposition formation. Its political campaign was directed against the residua of so called Proporz democracy, against corporative intermediation of interests and also against the organization and political style of „Old Parties” (People's Party and Social Democrats). The Freedom Party was the „motor” of transformation of Austrian party system, but the People’s Party was the most disadvantaged formation by this transformation. The People’s Party has to face the deep decline of traditional camp milieu, it has very strong problems with the rigid party organization and lack of coherent and clear programmatic vision. The new coalition after the elections in 1999 made of the People’s and Freedom Parties is a brand new pattern of government in Austria. This government opens the possibility to fundamental reforms of Austrian political and economic system. But the mutual relations of both coalition partners couldn’t be characterized as friendly. The Temelín crisis and the deep feud between FPÖ and ÖVP was only the most visible example. Nevertheless, Schüssel’s coalition brings another important change into the contemporary Austrian party system. This change confirms again that the party system and party competition patterns of late Proporz are now nothing more but Zeitgeschichte.