Populist parties and the failure of the political elites: the rise of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPèO)

The author analyses the reasons behind the electoral success of European right-wing populist parties.

Using the Austrian Freedom Party under Jörg Haider as a case study and with a richness of primary material, he argues that their success is only partly caused by «racism».

It is also, and more prominently, the result of populism - i.e. a critique of the «elite». These parties and their voters should not, then, be labelled as arrogant insiders attacking downtrodden outsiders like immigrants, workers, and minorities.

Instead, the right-wingers are more justly portrayed as outsiders and underdogs, raising their anger and frustration against the insiders: the «media elite» and the «leftists and the artists».