Neoliberal Think Tanks as (new) actors in Austrian socio-political discourses. The case of the Hayek Institute and Agenda Austria

Austrian chancellor Schuessel's right wing-conservative administration during the early 2000s induced a number of neoliberal reforms, resting on the strict dichotomy of state and politics vs. markets and private enterprise. Whereas the former in this conception is characterized as inefficient, static and uneconomic, the latter is euphemistically attributed with liberty, efficiency and dynamics. After this far-reaching neoliberal turn Austrian neoliberal during the last years think tanks increasingly have enter ed socio-political discourses. In this article , applying a social network analysis, on the one hand we demonstrate the close interconnections of think tanks like e.g. the Hayek Institute and the Agenda Austria in existing market radical networks of economic potent actors and employers' associations. On the other hand we employ a discourse analysis framework focusing on documents of think tanks self-representation and media response in opinion-leading newspapers in order to show that neoliberal think tanks are more and more becoming an integral part of a "discourse coalition" (Hajer) for the dismantling of the Austrian welfare state.