BABY ELEPHANT AND COMMON SENSE

An analysis of how crises are managed and framed in Austria, compared with other European countries (in particular Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain), based on wide-ranging qualitative and quantitative studies. The coronavirus crisis has revealed how stakeholders from ministries, government agencies and the academic community are attempting to manage the crisis from their own perspectives, resulting in an overall picture of nothing short of astonishing incompetence.
Far-right parties such as the FPÖ in Austria were able to skilfully exploit the political establishment’s failure to communicate effectively. In the wake of the anti-vaccination campaign, fascist themes became part of »normal« discourse, ranging from the notion of a supposedly »healthy national body« to overt anti-Semitism. The debate over compulsory vaccination also explains why, following the repeal of the law in the summer of 2022, the FPÖ emerged from the crisis as the winner and has since topped the polls in both elections and opinion surveys.
Democratic politicians could learn from their mistakes. This book would help them to do so.

Ruth Wodak, a linguist, sociolinguist and discourse researcher, is Emerita Distinguished Professor of Discourse Studies at Lancaster University and retired full professor at the University of Vienna. She has received numerous awards, including the 1996 Wittgenstein Prize for Excellence in Research. She was awarded honorary doctorates by Örebro University in 2010 and the University of Warwick in 2020. She has held numerous visiting professorships abroad. Her research focuses include discourse studies, identity and memory politics, media communication, populism and prejudice research.

Markus Rheindorf is a Privatdozent in Applied Linguistics at the University of Vienna. He has undertaken numerous research stays and fellowships, including at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, the International Research Centre for Cultural Studies and the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. His research focuses on the political dimension of public discourse, in particular the argumentative and narrative aspects of political positions on issues such as identity, migration and crises.

Barbara Prainsack, Professor of Comparative Political Analysis at the University of Vienna, Head of the Research Group Contemporary Solidarity Studies and Co-Director of the Vienna Centre for Advanced Studies (ViCAS)

Cathrin Kahlweit, a long-standing correspondent for the *SZ*, journalist and presenter