Radikalisierter Konservatismus [literally: Radicalized Conservatism] is a book by Natascha Strobl. It has not been translated into English (yet).
Finished on: 16.6.2025

“Plot”:
Strobl analyzes the changes to conservative parties when faced with right-wing, populistic parties. Drawing on the examples of Sebastian Kurz in Austria and Donald Trump in the USA, highlighting both parallels and differences between them, she shows how conservative parties radicalize themselves to become more right-wing, more extremist, and the strategies that push that change – and with it, change the overall political narratives.

Radikalisierter Konservatismus is both an easy read – in the way it makes things transparent – and a hard read – in the dramatic political shifts it analyzes. While I personally didn’t learn all that much that was new to me, it is a good condensation of the things I (at least kind of) knew, drawing connections and clearly stating just how fucked modern conservatism really is.

Radikalisierter Konservatismus was published in 2021, and while Kurz has since left politics (not all that voluntarily, I’d say), it reads just as current as four years ago. In fact, it seems to predict a few developments that have happened since. Above all, it makes clear how far the conservative parties – ÖVP her, Republicans there – have shifted in the last few decades. Not just in terms of the political content and ideas they stand for now (if they stand for anything much at all except “stay in power”), but also in the general way they do politics.

Strobl has a good eye for structure, and with her analysis compares both then (since WWII) and now and there (USA) and here (Austria). Her writing is comfortably fluid, so it doesn’t really read like a political science book, but it is also well-grounded in research and citations. I am not a political scientist, but I’d say I’m above average interested and informed about politics, and the book was a breeze to read for me.

Given that I didn’t have the feeling that I learned that much new stuff – although especially the parallels between Trump and Kurz were fascinating boiled down as they were in this analysis – I can imagine that the book is also very accessible to those interested but not that well-informed (yet). It is also a pity, given Trump’s second term now and everything that is coming with it, that the book hasn’t been translated into English (yet).

It is often a little disheartening to read the book. Not because it feels hopeless or doesn’t leave room to fight back. We just have so many astute observers and critics who tell us exactly what is happening, why and how, but they never really seem to be heard in the mainstream. Strobl should be on the news constantly to talk about what is happening, but that it isn’t happening just proves how radicalized the right-wing has already become – and how all of this has spread to our journalism (among other things).

Summarizing: time to get angry.