Walking the talk? The educational agenda of the Austrian populist radical right: From discourse to policymaking

This paper explores the educational policy positions in programmatic and parliamentary discourse by the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) and their actual policy measures implemented in executive office. The FPÖ is one of the most successful populist radical right parties (PRRPs) in Western Europe and also served in two periods of government with the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) (2000–2005; 2017–2019), providing a fruitful record over time. Our analysis over three decades (1990–2018) reveals that even though it’s not a highly salient policy issue, education policy has indeed become an ideological battleground for the FPÖ. At large, it uses education policy claims to substantiate the ideological core pillars of PRRPs, yet it also delivers on many of these claims once in government. This is particularly true for its culturalist claims, which trigger an increasing convergence by the centre-right partner. In contrast, the always-existing congruence of redistributive claims results in several policy decisions in both periods of government.