ABSTRACT
Michael Gehler and Hubert Sickinger pursue two valuable theoretical propositions. First, they offer to test the apparently widely-held perception that Austria, especially in the course of the last two decades of its existence, had developed into a Skandalrepublik. Second, the editors propose to test certain key conceptual writings on political scandals by applying them to the empirical case of Austria. Both of these endeavors represent scholarship at its best. By invoking history, the editors presume themselves able to conclude that the current accumulation of scandals seems to have had its parallels in earlier epochs of Austrian politics, thus falsifying the commonly held view that present-day Austria is more scandal prone than its various predecessors. Most prominent among them is Michael Gehler’s excellent discussion of the Waldheim affair. In his nuanced account it becomes amply evident that the Waldheim event represented one of the most essential turning points in the political development of the Second Republic.
