Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Proporz
Summary
Proporz (pʁoˈpɔʁts, from Proportionalität, "proportionality") is a long-standing practice in the Second Austrian Republic in which positions in government are distributed between political parties in a manner proportional to their electoral or public support. More broadly, it describes a culture of power sharing and consensus between Austria's two major parties, the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), which developed throughout the period of grand coalition government from 1945 to 1966. During this time, partisan divisions were established in most government institutions and the public service, designed to balance the influence of both parties.
Much of the system has been dismantled over time, particularly since the 1990s. While in 1999 all but one of the nine federal states operated Proporz systems, five have since formally abolished them. Some aspects, such as its application on a municipal level, endure to this day.
After the re-establishment of Austrian independence in 1945, there was a great desire to avoid to ideological factionalism that characterised the First Austrian Republic (1919–1934). The divide between the socialists on the left and Catholic conservatives on the right ultimately led to the Austrian Civil War and ensuing Austrofascist dictatorship, which ended after Austria's annexation by Nazi Germany.
This was exacerbated by the need for reconstruction in the wake of the Second World War, as well as Austria's precarious position between the Western Allies and Soviet Union. These factors compelled the Austrian authorities to seek consensus and democratic stability in the new republic. All-party or "concentration" government was practised in both Allied-occupied Germany and Austria after the war – the provisional government of Karl Renner comprised a coalition of the ÖVP, SPÖ, and Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) – but the development of Proporz truly began after the first national election. The ÖVP under Leopold Figl won an absolute majority of seats, but nonetheless invited the SPÖ to join the cabinet.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.