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Proporz (, from , "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, the nationalized industry, 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.
There was a great desire to avoid the ideological factionalism that had characterised the First Austrian Republic (1919–1934), when the divide between the socialists on the left and Catholic conservatives on the right ultimately had led to the Austrian Civil War and ensuing Austrofascist dictatorship, which had ended in Austria's Anschluss by Nazi Germany in 1938.
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 the Soviet Union. These combined 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 ÖVP, SPÖ, and the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) – but the development of Proporz truly began after the first national election. The ÖVP under Leopold Figl had won an absolute majority of seats (85 out of a total of 165), but nonetheless invited the SPÖ to join the cabinet: the new chancellor retained the three-party grand coalition alongside the Socialists and Communists.
In 1949, Proporz was expanded to include the senior management of nationalized industry. After the success of the right-wing Federation of Independents in the 1949 election, the government sought to limit its influence by applying Proporz at all levels of administration. This included the Austrian "social partnership", in which workers, farmers, and employers are represented in government by four elected bodies. The SPÖ headed the Chamber of Labour and Austrian Trade Union Federation, while the ÖVP headed the Austrian Economic Chamber and Chamber of Agriculture.
From 1958 onwards, the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) was headed by four officials – two from each party – with the ÖVP having responsibility for radio and the SPÖ for television, which at this stage was in its infancy. After the importance of television became clear, the parties began to wrestle for influence. This was resolved by a secret agreement made during negotiations for the second Alfons Gorbach government, in which the parties agreed that every senior position in radio and television be shared between a director from one party and deputy director from the other. After the agreement was leaked to the Kurier, the newspaper began a petition for a referendum to remove political influence over the ORF. The requirement of 200,000 signatures was overwhelmingly exceeded, with 832,353 received between 5 and 12 October 1964. However, the bill for the referendum never made it beyond committee in the National Council because the governing parties, which headed the committees, feared losing influence.Hugo Portisch: The referendum on the reform of broadcasting 1964, in: Haimo Godler (ed.): From steam radio to sound wallpaper: Contributions to 80 years of radio in Austria, Böhlau Verlag Vienna, 2004, , pp. 65ff. A bill scrapping the ORF's Proporz arrangement was ultimately passed during the single-party ÖVP government of Josef Klaus in 1966, and came into effect in 1967.
Proporz, particularly the concept of consensus government, did not fade after the end of the first period of grand coalition. During the SPÖ majority governments of Bruno Kreisky in the 1970s and 1980s, the ÖVP was frequently consulted regarding government decisions and legislation; as such, the opposition was never truly shut out of decision-making.
Initially, this model effectively guaranteed the ÖVP and SPÖ joint dominance over state governments, as other parties were typically too small to win any more than one cabinet position. However, the rise in popularity of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and The Greens from the 1980s onwards saw the major parties increasingly forced to share their power. This form of Proporz has since been repealed in most states; first in Salzburg and Tyrol in 1999, then Styria and Burgenland in 2015, and Carinthia in 2017. The model in Vienna, which is based on the municipal implementation, allows governments to deny portfolio to ministers from the opposition. The original system only remains in force in Lower Austria and Upper Austria.
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