Antisemitism as a political strategy and the development of democracy

The project investigates the relationship between parliamentary debate and the development of democracy in post- fascist societies. The overarching research interest focuses on how parliamentary debate is implicated in the (re)construction of national identity and the development of democratic political culture. This is exemplified in a case study of antisemitic rhetoric in the Austrian parliament (Nationalrat) after the 2nd World War, which highlights how parliamentary antisemitism has influenced notions of Austrian identity and shaped Austrian democratic culture. Detailed analysis of parliamentary debate has so far been neglected in mainstream parliamentary studies as well as contemporary theories of democracy. In particular, the role of parliamentary rhetoric in the construction of democratic citizenship and national identity has been left unexplored. To close these gaps, the study examines antisemitic rhetoric in parliament as an indicator for democratic quality and employs debate analysis as an instrument for evaluating it. The Austrian case promises fruitful results in this regard because the establishment of formal democracy coincided with the processing of the Nationalsocialist past. The commitment to consensual democracy and the narrative of Austria as the `first victim` of fascist Germany became two central and intertwined elements of political common sense in the 2nd Republic. This led to a specific amalgamation of Austrian democratic culture and antisemitic traditions. Parliamentary debate analysis allows for investigating the relationship between parliamentary rhetoric and democratic culture by showing how antisemitism was employed as a rhetorical device to distinguish between mere citizens and `real Austrians` for the purpose of deflecting guilt and rejecting demands for compensation. It thus reveals how anti-pluralistic sentiments, which had already eroded the 1st Republic, have also shaped the political culture of the 2nd Republic. The project employs a methodological framework combining rhetoric and critical discourse analysis for examining the stenographic protocols of parliamentary sessions of the Austrian Nationalrat between 1945 and 2008. This framework integrates approaches from linguistics, parliamentary studies, and research on democracy and political culture. It is therefore sensitive to the specifics of parliamentary debates, e.g. the relationship between debate culture, rules of procedure, and wider socio-political contexts.

The project investigated the political treatment of antisemitism in the Austrian parliament in the Second Republic and related it to the development of democracy after 1945. Parliament operates as the symbolic centre of representative democracy and sets the standards for what is publicly sayable. The parliamentary debate culture therefore has a decisive impact on the broader political culture. Taking this as our starting point, we explored the hypothesis that a change in the strategies for treating antisemitism in parliament would bring to light a shift in the political culture and democracy itself. This assumption was investigated using a normative concept of democracy based on equality and pluralism. With the aid of newly developed methodological tool-box, we analysed the plenary debates of the two houses of the Austrian parliament, paying special attention to concepts of democracy as put forward within these debates. We identified five different strategies, which sometimes appear in historical sequence and sometimes simultaneously: 1. Antisemitism as a political strategy: Antisemitic rhetoric is sometimes openly employed in the assembly in order to legitimate a political claim. Example: antisemitically connoted references to those expelled by the Nazis as emigrants who were said to endanger the cross-party consensus. 2. An (agreed) silence about and downplaying of the significance of the existence of antisemitism: This indicates that a process of political sensitizing to antisemitic rhetoric has already occurred. The actors know that antisemitism lies beyond the boundaries of the sayable and do not therefore wish to be considered antisemitic. Example: the removal of antisemitic interjections from the official record. 3. Accusations of antisemitism: The actors know that such accusations have a delegitimizing potential. Such accusations whether founded or unfounded bolster the accusers democratic credentials while undermining those of their opponents. Example: accusations of incitement. 4. Ostentatious distancing from antisemitism: In order to parry any suspicion of antisemitism, antisemitic stereotypes are reversed and so perpetuated in the political culture. Example: special praise for patriotic Austrian expellees in Israel. 5. Aggressive repudiation of accusations of antisemitism. Those who accuse a political opponent of antisemitism are in response attacked as anti-democratic. They are alleged to be using moralistic posturing to avoid addressing real political arguments. Example: the Nazi/fascism cudgel. In terms of political culture, the changing strategies signify a political sensitization in dealing with antisemitism, which rests to a large extent upon the equation of antisemitism and undemocratic attitude. With regards to the development of democracy in the Austrian Second Republic, we observed a constant narrowing of the realm of the publicly sayable with regards to antisemitism. At the same time, there were permanent attempts to broaden this space via counter strategies.