Keywords

Right-Wing Hegemony and Counter-Hegemonic Movements: Introduction

Austria’s post-war political system was characterized by social partnership (Sozialpartnerschaft), consociational democracy with two major parties, the Social Democrats, SPÖ (Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs), and the Christian-conservative ÖVP (Österreichische Volkspartei), including workers’ unions, the chamber of labor (Arbeiterkammer) and the chamber of the employers (Wirtschaftskammer) (Dolezal and Hutter 2007: 337). This constellation resulted in a rather closed system of consensual decision-making (Tàlos 2006) and a sort of “division of power”, institutionalized in “great government coalitions” between the two parties. Thus, there was hardly any room for other parties or for social movements (Sauer and Ajanovic 2014, 2016), and social movements have been late-comers in Austria compared to other European countries (Dolezal and Hutter 2007: 347).

The Austrian social-democratic project of modernization and democratization “from above” since the 1970s slowly opened the political system for new social movements. This brought a variety of single-issue and/or identity-based social movements such as women’s liberation movements, gay and lesbian movements, peace and environmental movements as well as Third World solidarity groups into being. Most of these early movements were rooted in leftist organizations or the SPÖ party youth branch (Foltin 2004).

By the end of the 1970s, the Austrian two-party system as well as the social partnership model gradually lost legitimation. This situation created a window of opportunity for new parties, such as the Greens, but also for the right-wing FPÖ (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs) to enter the political stage (Heinisch 2012: 372). Since then, Austria has been characterized by a strong right-wing populist party. After the turn of the century, the FPÖ is the major player in Austria’s political landscape and a competitor to the SPÖ and the ÖVP (Pelinka 2002). After elections in 1999, the ÖVP entered a government coalition with the FPÖ until 2006. The FPÖ won 20.5% of the votes in the national elections 2013, 19.7% at the European elections in 2014 (BMI 2013, 2014), and 25.97% in the national elections on 15 October 2017. In the direct vote for the Austrian president in December 2016, the FPÖ candidate won 46.2% in the third ballot.

Most important for FPÖ’s success is its way of organizing consent and creating hegemony by establishing an exclusive nationalist-populist project, which aims, for instance, at restricting access to social benefits to “nationals” and proving that Muslims and Islam do not fit into Austrian culture. This consensus against migrants and Muslims also challenges the social-democratic consensus of societal liberalization and equality that has prevailed since the 1970s. The right-wing struggle for consensus and hegemony evokes images of a natural binary constellation between “them” and “us”, which not only creates migrants and Muslims but also LGBT people, feminists, gender researchers and gender mainstreaming officers, and “the” elite in general as “others”. The right-wing discourse of an “exclusionary intersectionality” (combining class, nationality, religion, gender, sexuality) forges these narratives into a commonsense perspective of difference and inequality, of belonging and non-belonging and thus exclusion. The radical right’s strategy of “exclusive intersectionality” builds on a “chain of equivalence” (Laclau 2005), which results in “anti-immigration”, “anti-Muslim”, and “anti-gender” as “empty signifiers” (Laclau 1996: 36) for the new hegemonic project of exclusion, inequality, and solidarity of nationals only, of the nativist and homogeneous “we”.

On the one hand, the new political forces on the radical right developed into a challenge for Austria’s social justice movements. On the other hand, the visibility of the radical right has since the 1990s triggered the formation of anti-racist groups and new civil society organizations that oppose exclusive policies and the mobilization of hate and resentment against immigrants. As a reaction to the FPÖ’s referendum of 1993 “Austria first” (Österreich zuerst), calling to curb immigration and tighten immigration laws, 250,000 people gathered across the country to protest against this referendum in a “sea of lights” (Lichtermeer). These civil society organizations were able to unite with the leftist parties and trade unions against the exclusionary referendum. The success of the counter-forces created a momentum, and anti-racist and anti-discrimination movements spread all over the country. Since then, civil society organizations have mobilized against the FPÖ and its exclusive and racist claims.

Despite the huge mobilization capacities at the turn of the century, when the FPÖ entered a government coalition with the Christian-conservatives, it seems that these anti-right organizations were unable to stop the wave of success of the FPÖ and right-wing radical groups and to counter their practices and policies of inequality and exclusion. The right-wing hegemony of exclusionary intersectionality makes it difficult for anti-discrimination groups to establish a counter-strategy (Sauer and Ajanovic 2016).

While the rise and success of right-wing extremism in Austria is rather well researched, research on “anti-bodies” and on social movements that aim at countering Austria’s right-wing forces, their racist claims, and exclusionary intersectionality does not exist.Footnote 1 This chapter wants to contribute to this field with a special focus on intersectionality at the interface of immigration, race, gender, and sexuality. The entry point for this study is civil society groups that counter the anti-immigrant discourse and (anti-Muslim) racism of right-wing forces. I examine the opportunities of these groups to counter the “exclusionary intersectionality” (Siim and Mokre 2013; Sauer and Ajanovic 2016) of the new right-wing hegemonic project by organizing a common counter-hegemonic discourse (Laclau 1996). How do the different anti-racist, anti-discrimination, and pro-diversity groups in Austria answer the exclusionary intersectional challenge of the FPÖ? Hans Pühretmayer (2002), for instance, regarded the rather poor cross-linkages between anti-racist organizations as a problem. Similarly, studies on European anti-racist groups talk about a “crisis” of anti-racism as a “viable movement”, “lacking unity, workable strategy and public support” (Lentin 2000: 92). Lentin argues that a “reformulation of anti-racism as a viable form of collective action” needs alliances “that seek to go beyond identity politics” (Lentin 2000: 93; for Belgium Detant 2005).

Therefore, this chapter examines whether Austrian social justice movements have been able to forge alliances and to shift their activities towards solidarity with other activists and towards common strategic framing over the last 15 years. Or put differently: Do we find transversal politics and frames (Yuval-Davis 1997)? Do we encounter new forms of political intersectionality towards equality and difference, towards solidarity and emancipation? Are the anti-racist movements able to construct an “empty signifier” of social equality and social justice to counter racist notions of the migrant and Muslim “other”? Is this “empty signifier” able to unite the different social justice and anti-racist movements? This anti-right discourse should include the idea of recognition of immigration and plurality of the population, of gender equality and sexual difference, that is, an intersectional “chain of equivalence”.

The chapter proceeds as follows: I first specify the Austrian context, the development of the radical right, and the situation of NGOs fighting right-wing extremism and racism. I then elaborate on the theoretical concepts and explain the methods of our study.Footnote 2 Finally, I present the findings of the study by focusing on the activities, strategies, and frames of anti-racist and anti-discrimination groups. The conclusion reflects on the possibilities of creating counter-hegemony against the radical right in the light of “inclusive intersectionality”.

Setting the Political Context: Right-Wing Populism and Social Justice Movements in Austria

This section gives a brief overview of the development of the radical right in Austria in a historical perspective and the emergence of social justice movements in response to the right-wing challenge. The social democrats, who have been in power since 1971, strengthened civil society by mobilizing for “more democracy” and at the same time forging a new welfare consensus based on Keynesian policies and welfare state expansion. As a result, a variety of new social movements emerged. Some of these groups organized as “identity movements” as, for instance, the women’s or gay and lesbian movement, focusing on (supposed) commonalities in order to mobilize for gender equality, against sexism and homophobia. In 1979, the Homosexual Initiative (Homosexuellen Initiative, HOSI) was founded as a movement to fight for the rights of gays and lesbians.Footnote 3

As early as the 1980s, the women’s movement put issues of migration, racism, and women in the Third World on its agenda (Mayer 2015: 104f.). The first immigrant self-help groups were established in the 1980s like in other European countries (Ruzza 2000). In this area, feminist groups were rather active. The organization LEFÖ (Lateinamerikanische Frauen in Österreich, Latin-American women in Austria) was founded in 1985 by women from Latin America who migrated to Austria (http://www.lefoe.at/). Today, LEFÖ engages in empowering migrant women, especially sex workers, and strengthening their rights. A similar organization with an intersectional approach, Maiz in Linz, was founded in 1994 with the aim to fight for the rights of migrant women, to engage in anti-racism work, and to challenge “white, western European, patriarchal, (post-)colonial or heterosexual ideas” (http://www.maiz.at/).

In the mid-1980s, however, the FPÖ developed into a major political force in the country. In 1986, when Jörg Haider took over party leadership, the party “modernized” its ideology in the direction of a populist party in order to maximize votes and to gain electoral success. It pushed its German-national orientation and open Nazi discourse into the background and reorganized in hierarchical structures (Pelinka 2002: 286ff.; Campani and Sauer 2017). Since then, anti-immigration has become the party’s main issue. Since the turn of the century, the FPÖ has systematically established a discourse of difference and exclusion towards immigration and migrants with focus on “the” Muslims. The “populist” turn was accompanied by a discursive strategy to form “the people” as a community of “us” against the “others”, the immigrants, and thus joining the discourse of the new (radical) right (Mayer et al. 2016).

In response, the Austrian civil society landscape expanded in the late 1980s when another issue—Austria’s Nazi past—appeared on the public agenda. Since the end of the Second World War, Austria’s identity has been built up around being the “first victim” of Nazi Germany. After ÖVP’s Kurt Waldheim won the presidential elections in 1986, a wave of international and national outrage shook the country because Waldheim had denied his membership in a Nazi student organization (Foltin 2004: 150ff.). Leftist organizations mobilized against his presidency and eventually a new perspective on Austria’s responsibility as well as new forms of Holocaust remembrance developed. This was pushed forward by anti-Nazi organizations, originally founded by and for victims of the Nazi regime, for instance, the “Mauthausen Committee Austria”Footnote 4 (Mauthausen Kommitte Österreich, MKÖ),Footnote 5 the “Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance” (Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Widerstands, DÖW),Footnote 6 and the “Documentation and Information Centre of the Austrian Roma and Sinti association” (Dokumentations- und Informationszentrum der österreichischen Roma und Sinti).Footnote 7 These organizations are well connected with party organizations and the state administration. During and after the so-called Waldheim affaire, new anti-racist and anti-rightist organizations were founded, for instance, Asyl in Not (Asylum in Distress) founded in 1985 and Zebra founded in 1986 to implement human rights, equality, and integration and to fight racism (www.zebra.or.at/cms/cms.php).

Since the 1990s, Austria has seen growing protest mobilization (Dolezal and Hutter 2007: 338). SOS Mitmensch (SOS Fellow Human Being) was founded in 1992 by Vienna intellectuals as a mobilizing group against FPÖ’s “Austria first!” referendum in 1993 (Foltin 2004: 228). The FPÖ’s mobilization resulted in several waves of tightened asylum laws and right to asylum, which has been granted to refugees not least due to the country’s National Socialist past. In 1992, deportation of asylum seekers became possible; in 2016, the right to family reunification was restricted. A new foreigner law in 1993 and the so-called Integrationspaket (integration law package) in 1997 tightened the conditions for staying in Austria. In 2005 a comprehensive shift in migration legislation, the “alien law package” (Fremdenrechtspaket), was pushed through by ÖVP, SPÖ, and FPÖ/BZÖ votes demanding either assimilation or exclusion (Flecker and Kirschenhofer 2007: 158; Schumacher 2008: 1; Zerbes 2012).

As a reaction to this paradigmatic shift in asylum and integration laws, several NGOs were founded to provide legal, social, and psychosocial assistance for migrants and asylum seekers and to protest and mobilize against the restrictive laws. One of these groups is Helping Hands, founded in 1993. These organizations also launch campaigns against racism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia and promote equality, human rights, and empowerment. “Pink Anti-fascists Vienna” (Rosa Antifa Wien), founded in 1995, mobilizes against right-wing extremism and neo-fascism. The group, which is connected to the gay movement, provides information and conducts research, and it emphasizes the existence of different discrimination mechanisms and organizes demonstrations (www.raw.at; Foltin 2004: 224). Zivilcourage und Anti-Rassismus-Arbeit (ZARA, civil courage and anti-racism work) was established in 1999 with the aim of fighting all forms of racism. Overall, during the 1990s and at the turn of the century, the issue of anti-racism was widely present in Austrian protest mobilization (Dolezal and Hutter 2007: 344).

The growth of the FPÖ and its electoral success since the 1990s are effects of a “crisis of representation”, that is, a decline in Austrian consensus democracy. Moreover, Austria’s integration in the European Union in 1995; economic globalization; the neoliberal restructuring of the formerly strong Austrian welfare state, austerity policies, and cuts in social welfare; and the creation of low-wage sectors resulted in rising unemployment, precarization of working conditions, growing social disintegration, and rising poverty (Penz 2010). These dramatic economic and social changes and the crisis of neoliberalism since 2008 have marginalized working people; nurtured fears of social degradation, marginalization, and insecurity of the working class and the lower middle class; and thus fostered the rise of the FPÖ (Poglia Mileti et al. 2002: 5; Heinisch 2012; Wiegel 2013; Sauer and Ajanovic 2014). The FPÖ has been able to transform these fears into resentment and anger against migrants, and it has exploited the rising numbers of refugees arriving in Europe and Austria to mobilize intensively against immigrants.

When the FPÖ entered a government coalition with the ÖVP in 2000, “Austrian civil society”—a large network of civil society organizations—organized weekly “Thursday demonstrations” against the radical right in power (Foltin 2004: 258). This mobilization was supported by the Green party and by parts of the Social Democrats.

In 2011, Offensive gegen Rechts (Campaign against the Right), a group of young people and students that mobilizes against right-wing events through campaigns and demonstrations, was founded. It was established specifically as an alliance to demonstrate against the “WKR Ball” (Wiener Korporiertenball), the Viennese Ball of the (right-wing) fraternities at the Vienna castle (Hofburg).

In 2012, an important self-organized group, Refugee Camp Vienna, emerged. It is a group of asylum seekers and supporters who aim to raise awareness about the dire conditions asylum seekers face in Austria. The group “squatted” the Votivkirche in Vienna (a church in the city center) and attracted broad public attention.

Although the FPÖ occupies the right-wing political space, small right-wing groups and organizations with single-issue strategies focusing on migration, Islam, gender, and sexual difference have gained importance and public visibility in recent years. Examples are citizens’ initiatives against the construction of mosques, the Identitarian movement which claims to be a nationally oriented youth movement, and “parents” who protest against sexual education in schools (Mayer and Sauer 2017).

While the FPÖ promotes a neoliberal project of inequality within the Austrian society, that is, flat tax and competitiveness, party officials are able to present their world-view as common sense by referring to conflicts and antagonistic structures within Austrian society, for instance, social inequality and fears of social decline, and re-defining them as issues concerning immigration, feminists, and LGBT people. The anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim consensus draws on a strong tradition of “institutional racism”, for instance, an exclusive citizenship regime based on ius sanguinis as well as xenophobia in the Austrian population.

The Austrian landscape of NGOs fighting racism and right-wing extremism is characterized by a plurality of groups that deal with intersecting issues of discrimination. Some are state or quasi-state institutions focusing on fascism and anti-Semitism in the context of the country’s NS past. Others claim to be independent from state money and thus autonomous with respect to their activities. All these anti-racist, pro-immigrant, and pro-asylum groups were active in the spring and summer of 2015 when a large number of refugees arrived in Austria. As a sign of solidarity and compassion, they organized a so-called welcome culture in the country by providing care, food, and clothes for refugees. However, their fields of activity and their thematic and strategic issues are rather diverse. What could be a force might also be an obstacle in forming alliances and a strong counter-hegemony to the right-wing racist discourses (Pühretmayer 2002: 304).

Theoretical Foundations, Material, and Methods

The theoretical concepts presented in this section explain the main foci of analyzing the activities of Austrian anti-racist and anti-rightist NGOs. With these concepts the opportunities to create cross-movement cooperation, cross-movement communication, and cross-movement solidarity will be assessed (della Porta and Mattoni 2014). Moreover, the section explains the broader theoretical notion of counter-hegemony, which forms the basis for assessing the success of NGOs countering right-wing exclusionary intersectionality. Right-wing discourse actively creates interactions and intersections between a variety of differences—race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, and gender—in order to demonstrate, for instance, the supposed sexism of Muslim men and to connect these different structures of exclusion in one exclusive narration, in a chain of equivalence. As a result, one marker of difference and exclusion might be able to articulate with other markers and create an overall discourse of inequality and exclusion. Thus, gender might be articulated with immigrants or Muslims to fix the idea of the religious “other”. Racism, for instance, is based on hegemonic social discourses and practices (Omi and Winant 2002: 129; Hall 1988; 2000). Hence, new and alternative discourse articulations and new forms of “political intersectionality” (Crenshaw 1991) are necessary to transform these hegemonic constellations and to create new chains of equivalence and start a counter-hegemonic project (Laclau and Mouffe 1985; Stavrakakis 2014: 120). This new discursive strategy needs to target the change of material conditions.

Framing reality is an important dimension of creating “exclusionary intersectionality” (Siim and Mokre 2013; Sauer and Ajanovic 2016). Frames are sets of “commonsense concepts and notions” (Detant 2005: 189), which interpret everyday situations (Rein and Schön 1994). Frames are part of “discursive/political strategies” (Karner 2007: 85). Racism can be perceived as an interpretative frame of the social, economic, and cultural situation in a country (Detant 2005: 189). Frames, moreover, can mobilize action of civil society organizations, they are usually contested in political struggles, but frame coalitions can also support alliances and joint activities. To create counter-hegemony, movements need to develop “counter-hegemonic ‘interpretative repertoires’”, that is, alternative “frameworks of meaning” (Karner 2007: 85). Thus, frames are important means to create new articulations and chains of equivalences.

Two important dimensions of a counter-hegemonic discourse are transversal politics and transversal mobilization (Yuval-Davis 1997): While social justice movements are often “rooted” in a common identity of their members, it is important to shift this identity towards a position of exchange and cooperation with groups with other identities in pursuit of the common aim of equality and justice. Hence, the history of new social justice movements in the West that started in the 1970s shows that solidarity across movements is premised on the erosion of movement organization borders. This transversal politics of joining forces, resources, and frames proved to be an important means for democratization and social justice. Movement coalitions that emerge out of transversality may also be able to mobilize a “transversal audience” (Roos and Oikonomakis 2014: 120).

Hybrid organizations and hybrid activists are specific forms of transversality. “Hybrid organizations” are “composed of two or more types that would not normally be expected to go together”, for instance, identity movements like feminists or homosexuals that include anti-racist and/or anti-fascist aims (Albert and Whetten, quoted in: Heaney and Rojas 2014: 1051). “Thus, hybrid organizations traverse the boundaries that typically divide organizations in one category from organizations in another category” (Heaney and Rojas 2014: 1051). Hybridization of different “movements, constituencies, and political institutions” is a way to organize a great array of movements for one specific issue and to encourage coalitions and “crossover activists” to bridge multiple movements (Heaney and Rojas 2014: 1048f.). Hybrid activists amplify the identity of movements and the scope of their issues and themes, their frames, or their strategies. They are able to build “intermovement networks”, which allow for “recombining ‘knowledge, technology, or experiences’” and to “blend activism” (Heaney and Rojas 2014: 1049–1054).

Methodologically the paper draws on focus group interviews with representatives of nine Vienna-based civil society organizations that fight racism and discrimination. Moreover, we conducted face-to-face interviews with ten representatives from NGOs in the field. Overall, we talked with representatives of 12 organizations, which were introduced above.Footnote 8 The activities of these organizations can be divided into four strands: (a) education, information, and awareness raising; (b) counselling; (c) monitoring and documentation; and (d) campaigning, communication, events, and lobbying.

  1. (a)

    Six of the interviewed organizations are active in the field of empowerment trainings and remembrance work. This includes training and workshops against discrimination and racism, for empowerment, civil awareness of racism, and conflict resolution for pupils, students, and companies. MKÖ and DÖW mainly engage in awareness raising and remembrance work with regard to the crimes of National Socialism and its victims, especially anti-Semitism and anti-Ziganism. MKÖ offers guided tours at the Mauthausen Concentration Camp (MKÖ Online). The most important event, organized together with other civil society organizations, is the Fest der Freude (Celebration of Joy) at the Viennese Heldenplatz, where Austrian masses welcomed Hitler and the accession of Austria to Nazi Germany in 1938.Footnote 9

    Helping Hands raises awareness about institutional racism, which is manifest in day-to-day legal actions and decisions, especially in asylum-seeking procedures. The organization especially wants to break stereotypes of civil servants and the police. Maiz uses its cultural work to promote equality and stop racism, sexism, and homophobia. The first strand also includes the umbrella organization of Vienna Youth centers, which deals with everyday racism of and against young people. ZARA offers training and workshops for students, for organizations, and companies to increase the awareness about anti-racism, anti-discrimination, and diversity (zara-training.at).

  2. (b)

    Counselling for migrants, asylum seekers, and people who experience racism is the main field of activities of ZARA and Zebra. Counselling includes legal advice and psychosocial assistance for migrants and for victims of racist attacks as well as general information about possible action against racism. Asyl in Not’s major strategy is to empower clients by informing them about their rights during asylum procedures. Information about migrants’ and refugees’ rights seems to be the core of anti-discrimination work, as people who are not aware of their rights are more often the target of discrimination by authorities and institutional racism. Helping Hands, Asyl in Not, and Zebra counsel migrants and asylum seekers, for instance, in the form of legal advice in asylum procedures.

    In addition to counselling people affected by racism and discrimination, Helping Hands is also a contact point for information about neo-Nazi groups and right-wing popular culture such as symbols, signs, and music. HOSI counsels gay people, including asylum seekers who are being persecuted for their homosexuality. Maiz counsels migrant women, especially sex workers (Maiz Online).

  3. (c)

    Monitoring of right-wing extremism, racism, and hate speech is a major focus of DÖW and ZARA. ZARA focuses on anti-racism and DÖW on documenting and monitoring the right-wing extremist scene. For its Rassismus Report (ZARA 2014), ZARA collects all racist statements and incidents (offline and online), hate speech incidents, and neo-Nazi and right-wing extremist incidents and statements.

  4. (d)

    Campaigning against racism and right-wing extremism and for anti-discrimination is another pillar of most of the organizations we interviewed. SOS Mitmensch is concerned with communication, sensitizing activities, and campaigning against right-wing extremist and racist discourses.Footnote 10 SOS Mitmensch’s main activity is political campaigning for human rights, refugees and asylum politics, anti-racism, citizenship, integration, and social justice. Likewise, Asyl in Not and Helping Hands are actively lobbying to change the asylum regime in Austria. Offensive gegen Rechts (Campaign against the Right) mobilizes against right-wing events and organizes demonstrations. FairPlay, founded in 1997, lobbies for anti-racism and anti-discrimination (racism, sexism, homophobia) in soccer-related contexts. HOSI mobilizes for non-discrimination of same-sex marriages and societal recognition of homosexuals and organizes the yearly Pride parade in Vienna.

The first focus group was attended by representatives from HOSI, Asyl in Not, Offensive gegen Rechts, MKÖ, ZARA Training, and Helping Hands. The aim was to identify central issues of the NGOs. We were able to identify two central common “issues”, namely, anti-racism and anti-right-wing activities. The second focus group included one representative from ZARA, SOS Mitmensch, and HOSI and discussed anti-racists and anti-discriminatory activities. The third focus group on “anti-New Right” activities included one representative from Offensive gegen Rechts and MKÖ. We conducted face-to-face interviews with the other organizations.

My analysis concentrates first on cooperation, joint activities, and networks, second on the assessment of frames and narratives of the civil society organizations and their way of creating a “chain of equivalence” by mobilizing against antagonism in the fields of migration, Islam, gender relations, and sexual orientation. In short, I will focus on the organizations’ “capability to create alliances” (Detant 2005: 185), on their transversal framings as a common basis for mobilization and finally their relationship with state institutions and with parties and trade unions.

The Struggle for Counter-Hegemony: Political Intersectionality of Civil Organizations Fighting Racism and Discrimination

In this section, I will elaborate on strategies and outline the possibilities of civil society organizations fighting the radical right and racism by creating transversal politics and establishing counter-hegemony. Counter-hegemony, I contend, requires, first, joint activities and networking and, second and most important, deconstruction of exclusionary intersectionality and hence of racist commonsense arguments by stressing the right to difference and the necessity of equality and equal treatment. As stated earlier, the entry point for this study is civil society organizations in the field of anti-racism and anti-radical right. While early social movements—such as women’s or gay movements—were “identity based”, anti-racist and anti-right groups share the common aim to fight the radical right and racism, although their notions of racism are rather different. Gender, sexuality, and class are not at the center of these groups. Only some civil society groups were explicitly founded as “hybrid organizations”, taking gender, sexuality, race, and class into account. Nevertheless, in the following I want to point out how anti-racist and anti-rightist groups in Austria were able to shift their focus, to expand towards transversal themes and create conditions for transversal politics, intersectional framing, and a new inclusive “chain of equivalence”.

Transversal Politics and Cooperation

Transversal politics points to the ability of movements to create inter-organizational relations and cooperation. Cooperation has two dimensions: first, joint activities against racism and the radical right and second transversal activities, that is, joint activities that transcend the organizations’ aims and strategies. Our interviewees are aware of the necessity to build broad alliances against racism and the radical right, and they all see joint activities as positive. The most important argument is that cooperation can make anti-racist and anti-rightist organizations more visible and therefore might reach and address a wider audience (OgR, focus 1): “The wider the cooperation is, the stronger and more successful the mobilization against the right will be” (MKÖ, focus 1). Offensive gegen Rechts reports that in the last years more networks and alliances against the right have been established across the country and outside of Vienna (OgR, focus 1).

Most focus group participants knew each other from jointly organized events. They actively seek strategic cooperation and synergies when organizing campaigns or demonstrations. For instance, HOSI cooperates with MKÖ in organizing Holocaust commemoration ceremonies as homosexuals were detained at the Mauthausen camp. HOSI also takes part in commemoration ceremonies at a camp for Sinti and Roma (HOSI, focus 1).

The umbrella organization Asylkoordination, a network with several member organizations, regularly organizes exchanges on issues of asylum and anti-racism. Some of our interviewees are members of this network and organize joint activities. Quite a few alliances against the radical right also include party youth organizations, mainly from the Greens and SPÖ in some parts of the country (OgR, focus 1).

Hence, we encountered a lot of cooperation at specific events, for instance, counter-demonstrations against the Viennese fraternity ball (WKR) or prohibiting a gathering of the “Identitarian movement” in Vienna (OgR, focus 3). ZARA and SOS Mitmensch jointly organize the “Clean Politics Campaign”, which requests that politicians do not use racist or discriminating slogans during election campaigns, and HOSI organizes the yearly Vienna Pride parade in cooperation with other organizations.

Although all interviewees stressed the importance of creating alliances and of networking, they were also aware that they lack the resources to systematically organize transversal politics. Asyl in Not told us: “The problem of intensive networking is capacities and resources” (AiN, focus 1). Lack of money, time, and personnel is seen as the main obstacle to cooperation and joint mobilization, and the social justice movements are increasingly competing for the same decreasing state funds.

SOS Mitmensch claims that networks are important but also have weaknesses, “because we need to coordinate, this is time consuming and resource intensive; we are not able to act quick and focused” (SOS, focus 2). HOSI has similar experiences and adds the problem of “personal differences” in civil society groups (HOSI, focus 2).

The HOSI representative was very clear that the organization still is identity based and therefore cooperates more with “similar community associations” (such as Queer Business Women or AIDS Help) than with other groups (HOSI, focus 2).

Hybrid Organizations

Hybrid organizations include more than one type of activity or have more than one political aim; they traverse the boundaries of clear-cut movements, and “hybrid activists” aim at combining several political aims by crossing movement boundaries (Heaney and Rojas 2014: 1048ff.). Several of the movements we interviewed might be labelled “hybrid organizations” as they combine several political issues or are networks composed of different anti-racism, anti-fascism, anti-right-wing extremism, and anti-discrimination groups. The following organizations carry out hybrid activities against racism and the radical right: Asyl in Not defines itself as an organization that works with asylum and foreigner law and fights against the radical right (AiN, focus 1). They collaborate with the youth organization of the Green party and have created a “loose network” with Offensive gegen Rechts (OgR, focus 1). Offensive gegen Rechts was founded as a hybrid organization per se, a network and “action alliance” of 14 anti-right organizations, but also works with racism and sexism (OgR, focus 1). MKÖ is mainly active in organizing civic education on the Holocaust but is also active against the right and neo-Nazism (MKÖ, focus 1). ZARA combines anti-racism work with empowerment of asylum seekers through membership in the network Klagsverband (Litigation Association of NGOs Against Discrimination), which supports claimants, that is, asylum seekers, in legal cases. HOSI was founded as an identity-based organization but developed into a hybrid organization, which includes an “anti-fascist committee” and the group MiGaY, homosexuals with migrant background, founded in 2009. However, it seems that MiGaY’s primary goal is to become a member of the LGBTIQ community in Austria and is less interested the anti-racist scene (Kubicek 2014: 93).

SOS Mitmensch also presents itself as a hybrid organization with focus on racism in politics and right-wing extremism, as well as “intersections of racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and sexism” (SOS, Focus 2). Rosa Antifa Wien is a hybrid organization that expands the struggle against racism and fascism to gender sexual discrimination. They mobilize, for instance, for the right to abortion (www.raw.at/schwerpunkte/pro-choice/). Maiz was explicitly founded as a feminist organization that tackles institutional racism and racist perspectives. Helping Hands connects economic questions of who gets jobs, nationals or migrants, with questions of marriage, gender, and sexuality, as policies and discourses against immigration target these issues (HH, focus 1).

Some interviewees were aware of multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and therefore fight different forms of discrimination. Overall, the organizations in our sample have the potential to hybridize different issues of discrimination and to struggle against exclusionary intersectionality by mobilizing transversal politics.

Framing the Problem: The Success of Right-Wing Hegemony

An “adequate analysis of the racist phenomenon by anti-racist movements seems to be a precondition to develop efficient counter-strategies” (Detant 2005: 184). Some of our interviewees are very well aware of the right-wing hegemony and the paralysis of Austrian mainstream parties. Asyl in Not claims that it is difficult to work against the anti-immigration discourse because “the established parties and large parts of the society are clearly against liberal asylum and foreigner laws” (AiN, focus 1). In a similar vein, Offensive gegen Rechts argues “that FPÖ was successful in pushing diverse social debates towards the right” and that the established parties did not challenge this strategy but were defensive or even accommodative (OgR, focus 1). “The established parties leave a vacuum (of liberal immigration law, B.S.); and small NGOs like us are unable to fill this” (OgR, focus 1). Overall, the interviewees see themselves as weaker than the parties and thus powerless: “This is the problem; our arguments are never as strong as the voice of parties because they have a lot more resources” (OgR, focus 1).

The organizations we talked to agree that it is difficult to counter the right-wing hegemony and that “it is getting more and more difficult and complex to argue against right-wing extremist arguments and frames” (OgR, focus 3) as they are no longer openly neo-Nazi. The “Identitarian movement”, for instance, explicitly claims not to be racist. The anti-right and anti-racist civil society organizations are thus aware that one of their main problems is how to address and mobilize more people and “appeal to a broader population or all ages”, especially “young people” who “vote for the right” (OgR, focus 1).

SOS Mitmensch addresses the hegemonic problem as a discursive problem:

It is always more difficult to work against prejudices than with them. […] I think it is a basic problem that I experience in anti-racism work. It is, for instance, easier for environmental organizations as they work with peoples’ fears, with the mainstream, but we have to work against people’s fears. (SOS, focus 2)

A representative of ZARA was rather disillusioned with respect to possible changes of “institutionalized racism” in Austria: “I think it is an efficient system […] and I can’t see a way of cracking it” (ZARA, focus 2). Also, Helping Hands said that Austria does not have a political culture of a strong civil society (HH, focus 1). As the representative puts it: “In the dim past, we had the beautiful goal to change the legal framework in such a way that we would become unnecessary. But this is something we can archive as we probably will never achieve this goal” (HH, focus 1). Helping Hands sees the police, other state bureaucracies, and the media as a cause of right-wing hegemony (HH, focus 1). Especially the Austrian media landscape is perceived as a problem due to lacking plurality and neutrality of the print media (HOSI, focus 2).

However, they also witness “acts of citizenship” (Isin and Nielsen 2008), for instance, in cases of deportation where communities stand up for families to protect them (AiN, focus 1). The HOSI representative therefore claims that there are “opposing voices”: “But they do not have a public forum” (HOSI, focus 2).

Framing the Struggle: Transversal Framing and Emancipatory Anti-racism

The two important mobilizing frames of our interviewees were racism and anti-right-wing extremism. However, some of the organizations explicitly differentiated between anti-racist and anti-right struggles and claimed not to combine the two frames, while others contended that anti-racist work necessarily includes struggles against the radical right. Our interviews revealed that the organizations have different self-understandings of their strategies. The organizations were aware that their frames and aims might hamper cooperation. Like racism and anti-racism, the concepts radical right or anti-right are perceived as fuzzy. SOS Mitmensch prefers “racism” as a clearer concept for their campaigns. The leftist Offensive gegen Rechts remarks: “It is a challenge how to frame our aims to be most inclusive [for cooperation] […] not to abolish the state. First of all, it is important to have consensus, as it is most important to be a large group and to create pressure in order to be noticed by the right-wing extremists” (OgR, focus 1). However, during the focus groups, it became clear that all civil society organizations differ with respect to their aims—being anti-racist or anti-right.

It also became clear that the concept of racism and hence anti-racism were defined and conceptualized rather differently by the organizations and that not all NGOs frame racism in an intersectional or transversal mode. Racism and anti-racism are contested and multi-faceted frames. Hans Pühretmayer (2002: 294–299) discusses three “models of anti-racism”, namely, “reactive” or “moral anti-racism”; “techno-economic anti-racism”, which considers racism as a consequence of economic organization or of discriminatory laws (2002: 296); and “emancipatory anti-racism”, which fights intersecting practices and structures of discrimination and exclusion (2002: 298). Our material shows that these differences in conceptualizing racism and, hence, anti-racist strategies exist in our sample of civil society organizations. And these differences might be connected to general strategies against discrimination and racism.

In general, our interviewees told us that it is difficult to mobilize with the frame “racism” as, for instance, public and state institutions as well as parties refuse to use the word racism but talk instead about integration (ZARA, SOS, focus 2). Anti-Nazi and anti-Semitism frames are able to build broad alliances with parties and unions, but anti-racism is much more difficult.Footnote 11 The concept of racism is “cumbersome” and is therefore not used by all NGOs. If it is used, it “creates communicative problems” (SOS, also ZARA, focus 2). Moreover, the representative of Offensive gegen Rechts claims that it is difficult to find a common understanding of the causes of the rise of right-wing extremism; criticizing capitalism and the economic situation seems to impede joint action: “It is much more difficult to agree than to mobilize against right-wing fraternities or the FPÖ” (OgR, focus 3). Overall, our study shows that “substantial ideological divides within the anti-racist movement […] prevent co-ordinated action” (Ruzza 2000: 168). Hence, it is difficult to fight for emancipatory anti-racism and even more difficult to forge alliances under this frame. The next section looks at instances of transversal framing and thus of emancipatory anti-racism that exist even though anti-racist and anti-right movements are not united on common frames.

Counter-Hegemony and an Alternative “Chain of Equivalence”

A counter-hegemonic strategy needs new commonsense narratives as well as awareness to change material conditions. Common frames across the organizations we talked to are citizenship rights, human rights, (social) equality, and plurality. Moreover, all groups agreed on notions of anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim racism, but their definitions of racism differ. Issues of liberal rights and plurality and anti-Nazi mobilization allow frame coalitions with liberal print media, public broadcasting, TV, and leftist parties.

However, only some groups are aware of intersecting structures of exclusion and discrimination and of their complex articulations. Thus, only a few interviewees actively take, for instance, sexuality and gender into account. Maiz is most outspoken in fighting exclusive intersections of ethnicity, race, and gender. SOS Mitmensch monitors the “political sphere” in terms of its discriminatory discourses, not limited to racism but also sensitive to other “-isms”. We thus encountered transversal framing and a mode of “emancipatory anti-racism”. As one interviewee puts it:

We have different emphases. First, racism in the political sphere where we follow the discourse and which laws are being passed. And then we try to identify where boundaries in terms of racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and sexism are being crossed. Another area is state institutions, authorities like the police […] where we try to identify if there is discrimination […]. And the third would be the everyday racism. Here it is more difficult to decide where to react and where not. […] Also we are not reacting to every incident because we focus more on the institutional dimension. (SOS, focus 2)

Similarly, ZARA stresses that they aim at strengthening the recognition of difference and plurality and that their fight against racism is combined with fighting other forms of discrimination (ZARA, focus 1). The HOSI representative also reported that the organization deals with “multiple discrimination” and pointed to the struggles of MiGaY (HOSI, focus 2).

Some of the representatives are aware that right-wing hegemony rests on the difficult situation on the labor market. The MKÖ representative claims that the “Identitarian movement” is successful among young people due to austerity policies, deregulation of the labor market, and precarization of labor (MKÖ, focus 3). The representative of Offensive gegen Rechts stated that a successful transversal campaign against the political right—especially to reach young people—needs to offer “social security”, “a job and a carrier” for young people. The representative also addressed feelings of (social) insecurity and “fear of job loss” as causes of the success of the right (OgR, focus 1) and that right-wingers use “anti-capitalist arguments to mobilize for their aims, for instance against capitalists, however sometimes with an anti-Semitist tone” (OgR, focus 3). He concludes: “We have to open the discussion against ‘the right’. We have to take into account social causes, for instance economic causes” (OgR, focus 3). Similarly, Helping Hands stresses that anti-immigration resentments are linked to the question of jobs (HH, focus 1). Hence, the issue of class is part of the imagery of organizations fighting the radical right and racism.

The active engagement in countering the radical right’s exclusionary intersectionality, which rests in the empty signifier of “the migrant and Muslim other”, is still rather weak in the Austrian civil society. While some of the groups we interviewed do engage in creating an alternative chain of equivalence by combining the struggle against racism with the fight against sexism, homophobia, and unequal social and economic relations, most of the groups do not have the capacities for such a strategy—and they do not engage in transversal framing with other groups.

The State as a Problem: State Racism, Institutional Racism, and Cooperation with the State

The view of Austrian state authorities, that is, ministries, police, judiciary, and asylum administration, is rather controversial within anti-racist and anti-rightist organizations. Some are dependent on state money, some refuse state funding and cooperation, and some have to cooperate with state institutions, for instance, with asylum bureaucracies or the police. For organizations that are dependent on state money, the lack of resources is a drawback in their struggle for counter-hegemony. SOS Mitmensch and Helping Hands depend on donations in order to be independent of state resources, and SOS Mitmensch explicitly refuses to be dependent on state money (SOS, focus 1).

SOS Mitmensch, Offensive gegen Rechts, Asyl in Not, and Helping Hands make the Austrian state responsible for racism and racist practices towards immigrants and refugees. They criticize “institutional” and “state racism”, which is especially visible through restrictive immigration laws and—as the representative of Asyl in Not frames it—through the “criminalization of asylum seekers” (AiN, focus 2). These NGOs identify “racism as exercise of power” applied especially by civil servants and judges in the field of immigration policies. Due to institutional racism, migrants and asylum seekers encounter “systematic malignancies” by state institutions in legal procedures (AiN, focus 2). SOS Mitmensch furthermore identifies an increasing discriminatory practice in the context of citizenship laws and working possibilities for migrants (SOS, focus 2). Hence, these organizations mobilize against tight and exclusive asylum and integration laws and against restrictive citizenship regulations. Overall, they accuse the Austrian state of implementing exclusionary policies and thus being part of a hegemonic compromise against immigrants and refugees and supporting right-wing exclusionary hegemony.

Nevertheless, most of the NGOs perceive the state as a necessary ally. HOSI and ZARA cooperate with some state institutions, for instance, with the national and Viennese Ombud for Equal Treatment and anti-discrimination (focus 2). The representative of DÖW stresses that they try to establish networks with the police in order to sensitize the police for institutionalized racist practices. However, some organizations report that cooperation with state administration is becoming more and more difficult. Especially, the police is seen as repressing anti-rightist mobilization.

Overall, our interviews indicate a paradoxical situation: On the one hand, the civil society organizations see the state—as well as semi-state organizations such as leftist parties and trade unions, which could be political allies for an anti-rightist project—as collaborators in the racist system and as supporters of exclusionary politics. On the other hand, the organizations are aware of the necessity to ally with the state and with parties and trade unions to create counter-hegemony. However, our observation is that these alliances failed in the past, not least because Austrian mainstream parties moved to the right and implemented anti-immigrant laws, which have been on FPÖ’s agenda for a long time.Footnote 12

Conclusions

The rise of the radical right in Austria and the strong anti-immigration wave across Europe (Ruzza 2000: 167f.) have led to the emergence and public visibility of anti-racism, anti-exclusion, and anti-right-wing organizations. The fact that racism is inherent to Austrian society and that it is embedded in society and state institutions renders it difficult to fight racist discourses of difference and inequality. The intensification of these right-wing discourses and the commonsense status of their racist, exclusionary arguments, that is, the mainstreaming of the radical right discourse on immigration and immigrants, impede the work of civil society organizations.

The 12 civil society organizations in our analysis follow different strategies to counter the racist right-wing discourse. They engage in educational work with a focus on youth; in legal and psychological counselling of migrants, asylum seekers, and people who have experienced racism; and in campaigning and lobbying as well as in monitoring racism. In general, the study shows that in the context of commonsense racism and of exclusionary intersectionality of the political right, it is difficult to mobilize on a broad scale and especially to permeate social and institutional practices of racism, inequality, and exclusion towards counter-hegemony of equality and solidarity. Some interviewees were representatives of hybrid organizations, but their capacities to actively cooperate and forge transversal alliances and to promote transversal frames are rather low.

Pühretmayer and Görg’s (1999) diagnosis still holds: As in the Belgian case, struggles over the meaning of anti-racism—the lack of consensus on an emancipatory anti-racism and an intersectional, transversal, anti-racist approach—partly explain the weakness of anti-racist movements in the country (see Detant 2005: 195). While our interview partners are aware that fighting for the rights of migrants and refugees includes fighting institutionalized racism, the focus on racism prevents cooperation with trade unions and the SPÖ as they refuse to talk about it. We encountered transversal politics and alliances that go beyond identity issues but very few transversal framings of racism of the radical right that actively include feminism, gender, sexuality, and class. While feminist organizations would be “natural” partners of anti-racism and anti-rightist movements, the cooperation is rather weak.

I argue that framing, in addition to lack of resources and other practical issues, explains why it is difficult to successfully introduce counter-strategies to racism and practices of social exclusion. The engagement of Austrian civil society organizations would need a clearer shift towards discourses of equality and inclusion to be able to address the exclusionary common sense.

While anti-rightist and anti-racist groups are visible in the Austrian public and have the power to mobilize ad hoc activities, for instance, solidarity with refugees in 2015, their inability to liaise with anti-neoliberal equality frames obstructs cooperation with trade unions. And vice versa, the trade unions do not actively fight racist common sense. In the Austrian system of social partnership, this results in a lack of institutional power of NGOs. However, we found some changes since the 1990s: Some of the civil society organizations we interviewed explicitly linked the issue of hegemonic racism and voting preferences for the radical right to neoliberal transformations of work and family and thus started to connect anti-racism to issues of (in)equality and marginalization of the Austrian workers at the intersection of gender and race.