ABSTRACT
Populism is not a new phenomenon of the last decade in Austria but can be traced back to the 1990s. The developments of the last 30 years have challenged the Austrian constitutional order in many ways, but they also have affected the Austrian Constitutional Court. The term populism is highly contested in international scholarship. In a general sense populism is understood as a political programme that ‘claims to champion the common person, usually by favourable contrast with a real or perceived elite or establishment’. Populism in Austria is deeply linked to Jorg Haider’s takeover of the Freedom Party in 1986. The coalition government between the People’s Party and the right-wing, populist Freedom Party was viewed domestically as a political trick by the conservatives, but it was never understood as a real threat to Austrian democracy as a whole. The international perception of the Austrian political shift was much more dramatic and the reaction far greater than in Austria itself.
