ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the Second Republic’s party system had experienced change in many of its core features but that these amounted only to ‘restricted’ rather than to ‘general’ change or ‘transformation’. The Second Republic has witnessed significant change in the character of the party-political elites, amongst whom traditional ideological orientations have largely given way to a more technocratic approach. The chapter focuses on some of the most significant institutional and ‘cultural’ variables that together constitute the ‘regulatory factors’ shaping party competition in the Second Republic. Aside from the peculiar circumstances of the immediate post-war years, party competition in the Second Republic has been influenced by a number of interrelated contextual variables. One of the most distinctive features of Austria’s post-war party system has been the domination of the national electoral and parliamentary arenas by two very large parties: the Austrian People’s Party and Socialist Party of Austria.
