„Berufsstand“ oder „Stand“?

Overview & Synopsis

The Constitution of 1 May 1934 saw an attempt made in Austria to create an alternative to parliamentary democracy in the form of an order based on the professional “Stand” (corporation). The failure of this attempt was due to the nature of the “Stand” itself which, as something organically grown, is not accessible to institutionalisation. In reality, the corporation was just a means of enabling conservative thinking, in a much wider sense, to influence politics, a hangover of traditional forms of rule.