Konrad Lachmayer wrote a post on http://verfassungsblog.de/ about “Austria’s Populist Turn. Constitutional Conventions, Federalism and Resilience”.
See the full analysis below.
With the elections in September 2024, the populist Freedom Party (FPÖ) became the strongest party in Austria for the first time. However, this did not guarantee its participation in government. Too broad a consensus across parties established that the FPÖ was deemed a security risk for Austria and considered unfit to govern. In January 2025, hopes of averting populism quickly faded. When the negotiations between the conservative, social democratic and liberal parties collapsed, and Chancellor Karl Nehammer resigned and retired, Austria’s Federal President Alexander van der Bellen was left with no choice other than giving the FPÖ a mandate to form a government. In this context, two aspects stand out: the role of constitutional conventions in recent months and the political change in the Bundesländer (states). …