Moving on form the socio-economic to the political side of developments during these years, the sixth chapter describes the meaning of unification and the split between Austria and the new imperial Germany, ruled by Prussia, for many Jews and non-Jews. The act of unification was often felt by them as a painful rupture, but at the same time for Jews it also meant their own full integration in the emerging new Germany. Interestingly, this also included their entry into the political sphere, especially the liberal camp. In addition to their fight for final emancipation, they were also part of the efforts to establish Germany as a liberal state, despite and often against its conservative leadership. The life of Eduard Lasker, from Posen through Vienna and London to Berlin, is related in this chapter as an example. Especially interesting is Lasker’s evolvement into Bismarck’s major opponent among the liberals in the 1870s, standing for another, progressive vision of the new state, supported by the majority of the Jews, now torn from their co-religionists south of the new border.

Historians have tended to view postwar labor migration, including the Turkish-German case, as a one-directional story whose consequences manifested within host country borders. This chapter complicates this narrative by arguing that Turkish migrants were mobile border crossers who traveled as tourists throughout Western Europe and took annual vacations to their homeland. These seasonal remigrations entailed a three-day car ride across Central Europe and the Balkans at the height of the Cold War. The drive traversed an international highway (Europastraße 5) extending from West Germany to Turkey through Austria, socialist Yugoslavia, and communist Bulgaria. Migrants’ unsavory travel experiences along the way underscored East/West divides, and they transmuted their disdain for the “East” onto their impoverished home villages. Moreover, the cars and “Western” consumer goods they transported reshaped their identities. Those in the homeland came to view the Almancı as superfluous spenders who were spending their money selfishly rather than for the good of their communities. Overall, the idea that a migrant could become German shows that those in the homeland could intervene from afar in debates about German identity amid rising racism: although many derided Turks as unable to integrate, they had integrated enough to face difficulties reintegrating into Turkey.

Access to Austrian employment law is dependent on whether an individual can be regarded as an ‘employee’. Essentially, the idiosyncratic protection provided by employment law is awarded based on a binary option: the subordinate ‘employee’ in contrast to the self-employed person. Intermediary categories – such as the ‘quasi-subordinate’ status – are mere exceptions, although with increasing importance.

Austrian law does not provide a given notion of the ‘employee’. The Austrian Civil Code came into force in 1812, when special protection for employees was not considered necessary.

The Bank of England and its governor, Montagu Norman, who had a decisive influence on monetary reconstruction after the First World War considered the new Austrian central bank too accommodating of Viennese banks, which clung to a prewar business strategy no longer appropriate to the economic environment. The fraught relationship between the Bank of England and the Austrian National Bank limited Austrian access to the London capital market. Thus, much-needed long-term capital for restructuring and modernizing of the Austrian economy was not available in the quantities needed, only short-term deposits that were not rolled-over after the outbreak of the financial crisis in 1931. Austrian National Bank President Reisch was replaced in 1932 by Viktor Kienböck, a former minister of finance who then masterminded Austrian economic policy until the German invasion in 1938. In accordance with the League of Nations, which guaranteed a second international bond of Austria in 1932, Kienböck adhered to the orthodox economic policy paradigm, rigorously defending the currency in the face of growing overvaluation. As a result, Austria’s economy shrank, and by 1937 its GDP stood 14% below its level of 1929.

Germany can serve as short-hand for the “Holy Roman Empire” in the eighteenth century. Long dismissed as a constitutional “monstrosity,” the Empire in reality proved a surprisingly durable fixture of Europe’s Old Regime political and dynastic firmament. Within its confines there existed a multiplicity of sub-units that ranged in size and importance from the Great Powers of Austria and Prussia, to tiny independent principalities and city states. Some of these might be considered vibrant, and others stagnant. Some were ruled by princes who deserved the label “enlightened,” whilst others were governed by despots. A generalization that holds for the Empire as a whole is that it encouraged a political culture distinguished by its legalism and its localism. These characteristics were hardly effective when confronting the challenges posed by the French Revolution, whose real impact on Germany began in 1792 with the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars. These wars ultimately destroyed the Empire, thereby paving the way for the transformation of Germany that occurred under the hegemony of Napoleon.

In the second half of the 1960s, Austria seized on the Italian gas-for-pipe initiative and closed a deal with the Soviet Union. This presented a peculiar problem for the country’s small economy. Under the hegemony of convertibility of the US dollar, as well as the competitive, liberalizing impetus initiated in the establishment of the EEC, Austria feared that the coming large outlays in purchases of Soviet gas would not in turn be spent in Austria. The Soviets were pressuring Austria to liberalize its markets and do away with the strict balancing of trade that had been the norm during Bretton Woods through the technology of negotiated, long-term trade lists. They were right to fear. The Soviets were eager to spend the convertible currency earned through gas exports as profitably as possible. Years before military exports and Petrodollar recycling resolved a similar problem for the United States and Western Europe, Austria struggled to maintain the kind of accounts-balancing, barter exchange with the socialist world it had enjoyed in the postwar period. Market integration seemed inexorable. And the face of that inexorability was the Soviet Union.

This chapter is the second of three to consider Puccini’s travels, both for work and leisure. It covers his extensive travels throughout central Europe, primarily throughout Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The author notes that Puccini did not visit Russia, which had been a vital destination for many of his predecessors and indeed some contemporaries. Vienna and Munich were preferred destinations for Puccini, both for business and pleasure, though his reception in the Austrian capital was ambivalent. Budapest gave the composer a warmer welcome. Puccini visited locations around central Europe in order to supervise the performance of his own works (particularly La bohème), or to listen to the works of others – his first trip to Germany was to attend the Bayreuth Festival and hear the works of Wagner. He also keenly followed the career of his contemporary Richard Strauss, attending the premieres of his works in cities around the region. In Vienna, meanwhile, he became friendly with Erich Wolfgang Korngold and his father Julius. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Puccini’s travels for health and leisure, and his interest in the technology of travel.

This concluding chapter discusses the findings of the study and its contributions to the analysis of populist radical right parties and their impact on (local) government. It goes into further depth regarding the novel perspectives it offers regarding the study of three topics in particular: the policies of populist radical right parties in government, party politics at the local level of government and the threat to liberal democracy from populist radical right parties, as well as the restraints imposed upon them at the local level of government that mitigate such a threat.

The entry of populist radical right parties into positions of power has generated anxieties regarding the potential consequences for liberal democracy. Yet while these parties have also gained control of local governments, activities at that level have been largely overlooked. This longstanding neglect is surprising when we consider the development of populist radical right parties in Western Europe, which has been a provincial phenomenon from the beginning. Prior to their breakthrough on the national stage, crucial strategic innovations and electoral successes took place at the local level of politics. This chapter introduces the topic of populist radical right parties in local politics and positions the book in existing debates on their impact on government and strategies for governing. It provides a clear conceptualization of impact, in both indirect and direct forms, and summarizes the various strategies that they have pursued in government. It then outlines the various forms of populist radical right-led local government, distinguished by the radicalism of their impact and the involvement of the central party. The chapter ends by presenting a plan for the chapters to follow.

In 1927, when Coquet launched his movement for a European customs union, Riedl initiated an elaborate programme to use the League to bring about Anschluss gradually by embedding Austro-German bilateral economic integration in a multilateral system. He sought to bypass the formal treaty constraints that prevented the Austrian and German governments from pursuing this course by facilitating low-level administrative rapprochement through business organizations, using the Vienna Chamber of Commerce and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). By the time Riedl arrived in the ICC in 1927, it had already become an important organizational auxiliary to the League. Up to that point, the ICC’s engagement in League trade policy had focused on specific areas of business regulation, such as commercial arbitration and trade credit. Riedl pushed the ICC into a more political role by intervening in debates about the fundamental architecture of trade treaties. In the process, Riedl provoked new debate about the League’s authority to mediate relations between national governments and international business.

This chapter examines ownership and control structures in Austria. As many other European countries, Austria experienced a shake-up in securities law, mainly induced by EU Directives (such as those on shareholder rights, takeovers and transparency). Despite of investor favourable changes in the securities law, ownership concentration remain very high in Austria in listed and unlisted companies alike. Thus, large shareholders remain the predominant corporate governance model in Austria. The identities of the controlling shareholders remained very much the same during the past decades with one important exception, banks. Pyramidal ownership structures have remained prevalent as of 2018–2019 in Austria, since non-financial firms and holding companies together controlled nearly half of the top 100 Austrian firms. Thus, families and individuals which stand behind those companies remained the most important ultimate controlling owners. There was a remarkable decline of state control of listed companies after privatization but the state retained an important role as large and controlling shareholder in many of the largest (listed and unlisted) Austrian companies. While around twenty-five years ago foreign owners already controlled around 20% of the largest Austrian companies, this percentage kept increasing. The chapter discusses the role of ‘complementary institutions’, the preferences of both controlling owners and prospective buyers, and a missing political will to embrace a more shareholder oriented model.

Fearing shortage of culturally significant fish, medieval societies reacted in several ways. In a culture of markets, scarce supply motivates sellers to demand and/or buyers to offer more for the commodity: anecdotes from the twelfth century and serial prices from the thirteenth indicate fish prices rising even past 1350. Ownership of the productive resource itself could capture some of those sellers’ gains, not to mention the prestige and power medieval society associated with landownership: elite acquisition of fishing rights had begun with early creation of private lordships, but by and after the twelfth century it also promised income from direct exploitation or from leasing operations to artisans (depriving local subsistence fishers). In contrast, relict and then emergent claimants to public authority could gain by regulating resource exploitation ‘for the public good’. From the 1200s onwards kings, territorial princes, and self-governing communes asserted control over fishing rights and activities, first on acknowledged public waters (large rivers, coastal waters) and eventually over practices and uses of private natural waters. The chapter explores grounds for regulating fisheries as a ‘public’ resource to allocate their value, settle disputes, ensure consumer safety, and occasionally to encourage what might now be called ‘sustainable’ uses within recognizable limits. Like the artisanal fisheries toward which they were directed, these cultural measures retained close ties between local natural ecosystems and consumers of fish.