Political Science
Selling ‘Kleinkrieg’. Austrian-American military-industrial entanglements 1960–1979. Austria was among the first countries to adopt a newly designed rifle in the innovative U.S. 5.56×45mm caliber in 1977. We argue that this marked more than just a technical innovation—it reflected a profound transformation in the country’s military doctrine, geopolitical orientation, and societal imaginaries. The new caliber not…
Permanently Temporary: The Austro-Hungarian Consular Colonies in New York City and Rio de Janeiro, ca. 1900–1920s. Ever since its foundation in the late 1860s, the Austro-Hungarian Empire established so-called consular colonies around the world. These state-sponsored communities were meant to support migrants abroad and keep them tied to the motherland. My research focuses on the…
The Vienna Black Market, 1943-1948. During and especially following the Second World War, official food rationing in Vienna guaranteed an equal distribution of supplies, but left many hungry and wanting for more. Hungry Viennese men and women turned to a flourishing black market in order to purchase extra food and other goods unavailable to them.…
Relations between the United States and Austria-Hungary during the Taft Administration. Before World War I, Austria-Hungary and the United States were linked by commercial interests or immigration. However, very little is known about the political dimension of their relations.The aim of the research is therefore to determine to what extent the policies of the two…
Gendered pay inequality continues today as a major issue in Austria (and the U.S., as well as the rest of the world). The immediate post-war period of the WWII era was a period in which the military governments had the power of law and force to eliminate or impose unequal pay against women and girls. “Answers to…
The main purpose of the proposed project is to publish an English language, edited volume on the life, work, and the significance of photographer Yoichi Okamoto and the photographic record he created in Austria and in the United States. Using a visual frame of reference, the authors investigate the impact of Okamoto’s photography on our…
This project will explore behind-the-scenes political and personal connections among interwar Austrian politicians during Austria’s First Republic. From socialists to conservatives, Austrian politicians mingled with foreign guests and their political rivals at social gatherings in Vienna. In turn, these Austrians built up a network of political and social acquaintances that included a number of American…
Design Diplomacy: Austrian-American Dialogues explores the crucial Cold War role of design as a form of diplomacy through the prism of relations between Austrian and US industrial designers. While architectural historians have argued the significance of postwar Austrian architects and US-sponsored exhibitions in consolidating the new postwar social order, the significance of Austrian designers and…
This project explores the work of Walter Kotschnig (1901-1985), an Austrian student leader, humanitarian, and internationalist. Kotschnig was a crucial but relatively unknown figure in the creation of the United Nations and its institutions during the Second World War. This project will explore Kotschnig’s experiences as a student in early 1920s Austria, his involvement with…
This project concerns itself with the integral role that the United States of America, at both an institutional and societal level, played in the Habsburg story from 1916 to the 1945. A 2023 research trip is intended to forward my Transatlantic qualitative analysis of interwar, Second World War and early Cold War Habsburg Monarchist Reactionism…