Debating the lessons of history : the politics of the Nazi past in Germany and Austria

This dissertation argues that public deliberation is a transformative force in democratic politics. I build a framework for analyzing public debates in advanced industrial societies, and then use it to illuminate the political stakes of "coming to terms with the past" in societies with recent histories of mass violations of human rights. My dissertation recasts dealing with the past as a punctuated series of elite debates over the "lessons of history." These lessons become important elements of political culture and important variables in partisan competition. My cases are Germany and Austria, and the dissertation addresses an important empirical puzzle: despite similar electoral institutions, partisan political landscapes, and pressures from immigration, right-wing populist parties have experienced very different fates over the last two decades in the two states. Austria has produced one of Europe's most successful right-wing populist parties (the Austrian Freedom Party, FPO), but no such party has come close to establishing itself in Germany. What explains the divergent strength of the far right in the two surviving successor states of the Third Reich? I argue against existing structural explanations, and instead contend that the divergence between Germany and Austria stems from differences in elite ideas about the Nazi past. In Germany, public debates about Nazism produced an elite consensus that identified right-wing populism as a threat to Germany democracy. When the right-wing populist 'Republikaner' party first appeared, other political parties, the media, and groups within civil society actively combated it and prevented it from establishing itself as a permanent force in German politics. In Austria, however, public debates about the

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Political Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Art, David C., 1972-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Suzanne Berger.

• Political Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/28497

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/28497