Sinn von Sein. Foreign Policy, Memory and Changing Imaginaries and Practices of Neutrality in the Second Republic

Abstract

This article unpacks the meaning of permanent neutrality in Austrian foreign policy from a collective memory perspective understood as remembrance of the past and expression of the country’s ontological condition (Sinn von Sein). I argue, first, that while neutrality has remained formally a backbone of foreign and security policy, in practice, it changed its meaning to incorporate a more active role in multilateral institutions. Second, I demonstrate how this can be related to collective memory and changing imaginaries and role conceptions, showing how Austria’s Sonderweg emerges from a normative global ambition to contribute to a more positive understanding of order.