This volume focuses on how the far right’s views of Islam have been increasingly co-opted by both liberal and conservative parties and woven into the policies of Western governments over the past two decades. The unprecedented influence of xenophobic and Islamophobic parties, whether in coalition with governments or recipients of the popular vote, reflects a major realignment of forces and a danger to the Western core values of human rights and equality. From the Far Right to the Mainstream explores how Islamophobia has moved to the mainstream of Western policy making, and the role that the media has played.

Among its Continental peers, Austria has stood out for its longstanding state recognition of the Muslim community as early as 1912. A shift has occurred more recently, however, as populist far-right voices within the Austrian government have redirected public discourse and put into question Islam’s previously accepted autonomous status within the country. 

Politicizing Islam in Austria examines this anti-Muslim swerve in Austrian politics through a comprehensive analysis of government policies and regulations, as well as party and public discourses. In their innovative study, Hafez and Heinisch show how the far-right Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) adapted anti-Muslim discourse to their political purposes and how that discourse was then appropriated by the conservative center-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP). This reconfiguration of the political landscape prepared the way for a right-wing coalition government between conservatives and far-right actors that would subsequently institutionalize anti-Muslim political demands and change the shape of the civic conditions and public perceptions of Islam and the Muslim community in the republic.