ABSTRACT
Politics is concerned with the conditions and consequences of human action. Franz Vranitzky is like a Sphinx without a puzzle. The sketched out "world of denial" (Nichtgemeintseins) found its advancement also in the chosen political identity of Bruno Kreisky: the fact that Kreisky, as a Jew, had to flee from anti-Semitism deteriorated his public self image. A substantial part of Bruno Kreisky's political image was shaped by his unsanctioned leniency toward the ugly, gruesome side of the Austrians. On the other side remained Franz Vranitzky's subjective leadership drafts, from the beginning dedicated to transactional principles accompanied with a conservative leadership style that offered an exchange relationship of election votes for a restoration of the state budget. A scientific exploration of the complexities of human behavior as a frame for the analysis of “personality” and “politics” is—apart from approaches in interdisciplinary fields such as social psychology or political psychology—still missing.
