“Between protection and betrayal: Discursive struggles over Austrian neutrality after 2022”

Neutrality has long been central to Austrian national identity, symbolising independence, humanitarianism, distinctiveness within Europe, and nationhood itself. Since its inception in 1955, it has been discursively contested at critical junctures such as Austria’s accession to the European Union. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 reactivated and destabilised this cornerstone of Austrian national identity, sparking renewed debate about its meaning. This article examines how neutrality was defended, redefined, and contested across politics, traditional media, and social media between February 2022 and September 2025. Drawing on a German-language corpus of 8625 texts, the study integrates the Discourse-Historical Approach with corpus-based argumentation and narrative analysis to identify recurring topoi and narratives. Results show field-specific patterns: politics mobilises topoi episodically, media routinises them in polarised coverage, and social media refracts them into volatile and populist framings. The findings confirm neutrality’s resilience but highlight mounting pressures from European integration, economic crisis, and far-right populist co-optation.