Right-Wing Authoritarianism, Social Dominance Orientation and the Austrian
Freedom Party
Ralf Grabuschnig
Throughout the past half century, lots of research has been conducted on the theory of
authoritarianism. This research aimed at analysing authoritarian convictions and related phenomena
such as prejudice and xenophobia as some kind of personality dimension, therefore as an intrinsic
factor, embedded in a perso s ps he. Today, the two most widely accepted theories in this field are
Bo Alte e er s ‘ight-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), as outlined in his book Enemies of Freedom and
Ji
“ida ius a d Feli ia Pratto s Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). Both their approaches provide
questionnaires and scales to measure authoritarian beliefs and give explanations as to why people
may develop such convictions. While these theories derive from the fields of psychology and social
psychology, also their influence on the political level has been discussed; Altemeyer s ook for
instance, includes a chapter on authoritarianism amongst Canadian and U.S-American politicians.
However, what has not been analysed in great detail are the possible correlations between
authoritarian beliefs within political parties, their election campaigns, possible appeals to
authoritarian voters and the ways in which RWA and SDO can help to explain this.
In this paper, I will analyse the 2013 election campaign of the populist right-wing Austrian Freedom
Party (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs – FPÖ) to find out if and in how far their campaign reflected
possible right-wing authoritarian or social dominance convictions within the party ranks. After giving
an overview of the history of authoritarianism research, the two specific theories in question and the
FPÖ, I ill a al se the part s poster campaign for the Austrian parliamentary elections in September
2013 to find correlations between their campaign strategy and personality characteristics predicted
by RWA and SDO. Using typical character traits connected with high-scorers on these two scales, I
want to find out whether political topics reflecting these o i tio s ere prese t i this ear s
1
election campaign of the FPÖ. My assumption is that the party definitely addressed fears and world
ie s o
e ted to ‘WA. As to “DO, I assu e to fi d so e orrelatio s, due to the part s past as a
liberal movement as well.
Authoritarianism, Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation
The earliest important approach, attempting to explain convictions such as prejudice or xenophobia
with a particular personality trait was conducted by Theodore Adorno et al. in The Authoritarian
Personality in 19501. The authors argued that certain people are more prone to adopt authoritarian
and fascist attitudes than others, which is embedded in their psyche and often derives from
authoritarian, punitive parenting. These persons tend to divide the world in simplistic black and
white categories, are hostile towards outgroups and obey authorities more than others2. Only a few
years later, Gordon Allport published his book The Nature of Prejudice3, which in a certain way
complemented this theory while shifting the focus to social factors as an influence, rather than harsh
parenting4.
In the decades that followed, however, interest in theories concerning authoritarianism waned,
which was largely due to the unconvincing results achieved ith Ador o s Fas is -scale. Only in the
1980s was the research taken up again by Bob Altemeyer. In his book The Enemies of Freedom5, he
picked out three particular aspects of authoritarianism as described by Adorno et al., which he
believed to be its main determinants: conventionalism, authoritarian aggression and authoritarian
submission6. Using this framework, he developed the RWA-scale, which in subsequent research
proved to be a powerful tool for predicting convictions, such as prejudice, outgroup hostility and
1
T. Adorno et al., The Authoritarian Personality (New York: Harper, 1950).
Rupert Brown, Prejudice: Its Social Psychology (John Wiley & Sons, 2011), 15.
3
Gordon Willard Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 1954).
4
Joh Du kitt, Perso alit a d Prejudi e, i On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years after Allport (Malden MA:
Wiley-Blackwell, 2005), 398.
5
Bob Altemeyer, Enemies of Freedom: Understanding Right-wing Authoritarianism (Jossey-Bass Publishers,
1988).
6
Du kitt, Perso alit a d Prejudi e,
.
2
2
ethnocentrism. General characteristics of a person scoring high on the RWA-scale are the perception
of the world as a threatening place, willingness to submit to authority, appreciation of uniformity and
conventionalism.
The second important contribution to this research in the past years has been the Social Dominance
Orientation by Sidanius and Pratto7. It detects similar phenomena to the RWA, amongst them
prejudice and ethnocentrism, but it seems to do so in a different way. High-scorers on the SDO-scale
generally show a preference for hierarchy, competition and carry with them a sur i al of the fittest
perception of the world, which is very different to the threat perception of the RWA. The two scales,
i Alte e er s opi io , therefore both measure authoritarian personalities but different dimensions
of it, the submissive and the dominant one8.
Before analysing possible correlations between the FPÖ s ele tio
a paig a d the hara ter traits
predicted by RWA and SDO, I will first take a look at the part s histor a d ideolog .
The Austrian Freedom party
Quite unusual for a European populist right-wing party, the FPÖ is not a new movement but has a
rather long tradition. It is the direct successor of the League of Independents (Verband der
Unabhängigen), which was formed in 1949 already, as an alternative to the two dominant Austrian
parties, the “o ial De o rats a d the o ser ati e People s Part , thereby comprising liberals and
nationalists (including former Nazis) alike. Until the 1980s, the FPÖ remained way under 10% in
parliamentary elections. This started to change in 1986, when Jörg Haider took over the party s
leadership. Moving towards a populist, nationalist position, following a deliberately anti-immigration
policy, Haider managed to strengthen the FPÖ with every election until they reached almost 27% in
7
Jim Sidanius and Felicia Pratto, Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression
(Cambridge University Press, 2001).
8
Bo Alte e er a d M. P. Za a, The Other Authoritaria Perso alit , Advances in Experimental Social
Psychology 30 (1998): 47–92.
3
, e di g up se o d ehi d the “o ial De o rats. I a o tro ersial
o e, the People s Part ,
only third in the elections, subsequently forged a coalition with the FPÖ under a conservative prime
minister. However, the following five years in government had a very negative influence on the FPÖ s
popularity and internal cohesion. In 2005 Haider left the party to start a new movement, which also
took over the seats in government, leaving the remaining party in the opposition. Its new leader
Heinz-Christian Strache in his role as an opposition politician since then has managed to re-structure
the party and it steadily recovered in subsequent elections. This year it reached over 20% again, the
best result since the split in 2005.9
After Haider took over the Freedom Party, it transformed into a more or less typical European rightwing party in many respects. Today it stands against further European integration, immigration
(especially from Muslim countries) and generally claims to be an anti-establishment party –
characteristics it shares with many other European rightist movements. Yet, as Anton Pelinka has
rightly pointed out, the FPÖ is
o
ea s Europea
ai strea
10
. While it is, like other parties
elsewhere, populist, xenophobic, and anti-EU, it is also a traditionalist party. The FPÖ has a direct
continuity to the Austrian branch of the NSDAP and more generally to the pan-Germanic camp in
Austrian politics of the interwar years, which clearly differentiates it from other European parties of
the right11.
Susi Meret, in her dissertation on European right-wing parties, discusses the possible connections
between authoritarianism and the FPÖ. Even though she states that many accounts on the party are
exaggerated due to the connections to the NSDAP, the FPÖ notwithstanding shows some
authoritarian tendencies like a strong law and order policy12. Additionally, an analysis by Reinhard
“usi Meret, The Da ish People s Part , the Italia Norther League a d the Austria Freedo Part i a
Co parati e Perspe ti e: Part Ideolog a d Ele toral “upport (Aal org U i ersit , 2010), 186–188.
10
A to Peli ka, Die FPÖ i Der Verglei he de Parteie fors hu g: Zur T pologis he Ei ord u g Der
Freiheitli he Partei Österrei hs, Österreichische Zeitschrift Für Politikwissenschaft 31, no. 3 (2002): 282.
11
Ibid., 282–87.
12
Meret, The Da ish People s Part , the Italia Norther League a d the Austria Freedo Part i a
9
4
Heinisch shows the strong leader principle within the party. It is run by the party leader, other
officials rotate permanently and the boards and committees are more or less powerless13. After all it
seems clear that certain authoritarian convictions do exist in the FPÖ. The question is: does this show
in their election campaign? Does their progra
e refle t authoritaria
eliefs as a part of the part s
culture? How can RWA- and SDO help to explain this?
The 2013 election campaign
The FPÖ launched its first major poster campaign for the parliamentary elections (which were held
on September 29th) in August this year. The first wave was titled Nächstenliebe (neighbourly love - in
the Christian sense) and consisted of seven posters and a number of advertisements in various
newspapers. A second and third wave followed in September, raising the total number of posters to
29 and the number of newspaper ads to 3014. Additionally, other means of advertisement were used
such as a number of TV- and radio spots and (already traditionally but still very amusingly) a rap song.
Due to the limited size of this paper, my analysis will solely focus on the poster and newspaper
a paig . It is o ious that this is o l a part of the o erall part s ad ertise e t a d a therefore
only explain its strategy partly. However, printed ads are still the core of the campaign and therefore
represent the overall trend sufficiently. I would even argue they give a clearer picture about the
actual strategy applied by the party leadership in a certain way, since speeches and debates, for
instance, are always influenced by other factors, such as the respective audience and other
discussion participants.
In this chapter I will analyse altogether 59 advertisements to find out whether they reflect the
idealised character traits predicted by RWA and SDO. For the purpose of this analysis, I will use a very
simplified version of the two theories in question. I will reduce their main assumptions to their most
Co parati e Perspe ti e,
.
13
‘ei hard Hei is h, Die FPÖ–Ei Phä o e I I ter atio ale Verglei h, Österreichische Zeitschrift Für
Politikwissenschaft 33, no. 3 (2004): 252.
14
all material is available (as of 27th November 2013) at: http://www.hcstrache.at/kampagne/ and
http://www.fpoe.at/kampagne/download-plakatkampagne/ (both in German only)
5
general points, in order to make analysis easier. Very generally, the character traits a high-scorer on
the respective scales is likely to have are:
SDO:
1. a preference for social hierarchies
2. a preference for competition
RWA:
1. the perception of the world as a threatening place
2. an appreciation of uniformity
3. Conventionalism
The vast majority of all advertisements published by the FPÖ in their campaign deal with justice and
fairness, which already seems to contradict any preference for competition and social hierarchy. In
fact, heavy emphasis was placed on the topics of pensions, fair and just wages and social welfare. All
these topics taken together account for almost half of all the advertisements published. This can be
explained with the new image the FPÖ has given itself in recent years, the idea of a Soziale
Heimatpartei (Social homeland party)15. Moreover, this is not a phenomenon specific to the FPÖ, as
other modern European right-wing parties also put great emphasis on social issues and fairness
today16. The only aspect of their propaganda, which clearly refle ts the “DO s preference of
hierarchies is the differentiation between ingroup and outgroup, in the FPÖ s ase Austria s a d
foreigners. In this respect, hierarchical thinking can clearly be detected. On a more general level,
however, this preference for hierarchies is not given. Therefore, we can subsume that if authoritarian
convictions play a role for the FPÖ or right-wing parties in general, it is not the dominant branch.
So what about the submissive branch? At first look, uniformity is present in most right- i g parties
Peli ka, Die FPÖ i Der Verglei he de Parteie fors hu g: Zur T pologis he Ei ord u g Der Freiheitli he
Partei Österrei hs,
–86.
16
Meret, The Da ish People s Part , the Italian Northern League and the Austrian Freedom Party in a
Co parati e Perspe ti e,
–112.
15
6
campaigns, since their language largely builds on the construction of us vs. them images. This is
closely related to the image of an anti-establishment and protest party. Yet, this is not a clear sign for
authoritarian convictions.
What the FPÖ clearly does, however, and which is a way stronger sign in this direction, is the
portrayal of threatening scenarios. In this ear s campaign, several such threats were present. On
one poster concerning the EU and foreign policy, the party states that it wants to ensure the
prote tio of the e plo ees against cheap competition [from Eastern-Europe] ,
prote t
ater a d health foodstuffs fro
oreo er it aims to
the fi a ial greed of the EU-trusts . The topi of heap
labour from the East is also discussed twice in the newspaper advertisements. There, the
go er
e t e a les the a use of the so ial state
o - itize s
allo i g i
igratio . O
another poster about Nächstenliebe the part de a ds a stop of e portatio of fa il
abroad [to foreig ers] . Concerning pensions, they demand to sustai our o
gro
e efits
traditio s a d
alues . Fi all , the part also uses the topi of ri e to reate even the perception of physical
threat, in addition to economic one through immigration. Two newspaper advertisements were
devoted to this topic. One Viennese ad said: The sad truth i Vie
a:
ore tha
ri es a da ,
one out of nine Viennese has already been a victim, 41% of all caught criminals are foreigners, only
one out of three criminals can be caught, police suffers from shortage of perso
el . Another one
goes: [the other parties] have already turned asylum into immigration. At the same time, the
number of crimes and misdeeds rises. A large part of the suspects and detainees are not Austrians.
The SPÖ [Social Democratic Party] even wants to abolish lifelo g .
These advertisements clearly broadcast the picture of a threatening world and offer a law and order
policy as the solution. Since the perception of threat is the main characteristic of a high-scorer on a
RWA scale (a submissive authoritarian), e a
o lude that the FPÖ s ele tio
a paig does
indeed include formulations and messages representing such eliefs ithi the part s ulture.
However, this is mostly limited to the submissive type, since no general signs of SDO-characteristics
7
can be found in the material, except for the differentiation between ingroup and outgroup; Austrian
and foreigner.
Conclusion
After giving an introduction to the past research on authoritarianism and authoritarian identities, I
have identified Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation as the most essential
theories in the field. I then raised the question if, and in which respect these findings are also present
in political propaganda. As a case study, I presented the Austrian Freedom Party and their campaign
for the parliamentary elections this year with the aim to analyse this material to find messages
related to the idealised character traits predicted by RWA and SDO.
The analysis of the advertisements shows that concerning RWA very clear correlations can be found.
The strongest one is by far the creation of threat, which is widely used in the FPÖ s a paig . Apart
from this, unity and even some sort of uniformity are created by the repeated differentiation
et ee
us Austria s a d the
foreig ers , hi h i plies sa e ess ithi the group of
Austria s . Moreo er, the part s i ter al leader pri iple also supports the h pothesis that there
are certain authoritarian convictions existing within its ranks. However, there are no messages aimed
at SDO-connected character traits, at least within the ingroup. Quite the opposite: the vast majority
of posters and advertisements emphasised fairness, justice and unity, which is completely
o tradi tor to “DO s notions of competition and hierarchy. I can only speculate on the reasons for
this finding here but for a good part it can surely be explained with the new image of a Soziale
Heimatpartei and the underlying shift of the electorate from mostly middle-class people and
academics to the young working class. An important factor that made this reorientation possible was
also the party s split of the early 90s, when the liberal wing left the FPÖ i protest agai st Haider s
e
ourse. This freed the re ai i g part fro
its neoliberal influences, making a shift towards
the working class and an embracement of justice and the welfare state possible, in order to maximise
electoral support. Leaving this aside, however, we can safely conclude that the FPÖ does show
8
authoritarian characteristics in their election campaign. These are mostly limited to the submissive
type though.
This finding gives some new insight into the nature of parties like the FPÖ and offers a different way
of understanding these movements, not only from a political or sociological perspective, but also
from a psychological one. Since this paper only showed signs of authoritarianism in the material
published by the party, it would be of great interest to follow this finding on a personal level too. It
would be very interesting to see how members of the FPÖ would score on the RWA-scale to confirm
or contradict the argument set forth in this paper; however, it will be quite a challenge to convince
them to take part in this research.
9
Bibliography
Adorno, T., E. Frenkel-Brunswick, D. Levinson, and N. Sanford. The Authoritarian Personality. New
York: Harper, 1950.
Allport, Gordon Willard. The Nature of Prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 1954.
Altemeyer, Bob. Enemies of Freedom: Understanding Right-wing Authoritarianism. Jossey-Bass
Publishers, 1988.
Alte e er, Bo , a d M. P. Za a. The Other Authoritaria Perso alit . Advances in Experimental
Social Psychology 30 (1998): 47–92.
Brown, Rupert. Prejudice: Its Social Psychology. John Wiley & Sons, 2011.
Du kitt, Joh . Perso alit a d Prejudi e. I On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years after Allport.
Malden MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005.
Hei is h, ‘ei hard. Die FPÖ–Ei Phä o e I I ter atio ale Verglei h. Österreichische
Zeitschrift Für Politikwissenschaft 33, no. 3 (2004): 247–262. [The FPÖ – A phenomenon in
international comparison]
Meret, “usi. The Da ish People s Part , the Italia Norther League a d the Austria Freedo Part
i a Co parati e Perspe ti e: Part Ideolog a d Ele toral “upport. Aalborg University,
2010.
Peli ka, A to . Die FPÖ in Der Vergleichenden Parteienforschung: Zur Typologischen Einordnung
Der Freiheitli he Partei Österrei hs. Österreichische Zeitschrift Für Politikwissenschaft 31,
no. 3 (2002). [The FPÖ in comparative party research: On the typological classification of the
Austrian Freedom Party]
Sidanius, Jim, and Felicia Pratto. Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and
Oppression. Cambridge University Press, 2001.
10