ABSTRACT
Austria’s political culture has been analysed from the approach developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the Almond/Verba/Powell school. Consociationalism is based on the degree of social fragmentation and the trends of elitist behaviour. Deep fragmentation between the Lagers was a characteristic of both the First and the Second Republic. The characteristic fragmentation of Austrian society dates from the end of the nineteenth century and resulted from specific cleavages which helped shape Austrians’ political identity. The consequences of identity being generated along cleavage lines and through Lager structures were to be both profound and enduring. The trend which Austria’s political culture is following means Westernization, and that means losing its distinct Austrian flavour. Underpinning such a political culture has to be the self-evident dominance of consensus and compromise among the political elites. The acceptance of this rule in post-Second World War Austria tended to militate in favour of an Austrian national identity.
