Understanding politics

Gateway to democracy: The right comes from the people

The analog-virtual exhibition Gateway to Democracy in front of the historic Coat of Arms Hall was opened on Monday.

(Bild: Clara Milena Steiner)

Within four months, the anterooms to the historic coat of arms hall in the Landhaus in Klagenfurt have been given a completely new look: An analog-virtual exhibition now conveys knowledge about the state parliament, democracy and human rights.

Simple, low-threshold, state-of-the-art and interactive, the gateway to democracy in the Landhaus Klagenfurt explains what politics is all about. How are laws made? What does parliament do and what do its committees do? How far can art go? How do elections work and why do we live in a democracy?

Visitors will find answers to these questions and more, because: "Democracy needs well-informed and responsible people, it needs participation so that it can be lived," says Reinhart Rohr, President of the Provincial Parliament, at the opening of the new permanent exhibition.

An increasing loss of trust in politics, crises such as corona and the war in Ukraine as well as growing uncertainty are reasons why the "foundation of our democracy has obviously cracked". With the aim of providing information, the Gateway to Democracy - designed in four languages: German, Slovenian, English and Italian - is a joint contribution by the provincial parliament and kärnten.museum. The exhibition was realized with political scientist Kathrin Stainer-Hämmerle from the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences and Lendarchitektur. Incidentally, it was largely financed by the unused and frozen Green Party club funding.

The analog-virtual exhibition Gateway to Democracy in front of the historic Coat of Arms Hall was opened on Monday.

(Bild: Clara Milena Steiner)

The struggle for democracy is "indispensable", according to Governor Peter Kaiser, and "very much the focus of this year's Year of Remembrance Culture", as Wolfgang Muchitsch, Director of the kärnten.museum, emphasized. From the fall, the Kidmobil will therefore visit local schools with democracy workshops. Until then, interested visitors can view the permanent exhibition in the anterooms of the large coat of arms hall - admission is free for visitors under the age of 19.

Politik verstehen:

Was ist Demokratie eigentlich?

Justice comes from the people - (almost) everyone knows this phrase. It goes back to the ancient Greek term "dēmokratía", which means rule by the people. And this has been our form of government since the end of the monarchy in 1918. This is enshrined in Article 1 of the Federal Constitutional Law: "Austria is a democratic republic. Its law emanates from the people." But what does this actually mean for all of us?

First and foremost: everyone aged 16 and over - including women since 1919 - can directly elect who represents us and the will of the majority at a political level. Because in a democracy, the people are the sovereign of the state, i.e. the supreme authority. They therefore influence political decisions - which are controlled by the opposition.

And: In Austria, there is freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and freedom of opinion; no one is persecuted or punished for their opinion. Everyone has the same rights and obligations. "So that not just a few people decide everything, power in the state is divided - into legislation (legislative branch), administration (executive branch) and the judiciary (judicial branch)," visitors learn in the permanent exhibition Gateway to Democracy (see above).

Radicalization, alienation and insecurity, for example through fake news and disinformation, threaten democracy. In the 1930s, the corporative state and National Socialism showed us just how fragile the system is - there was no free press, no elections, political opponents, Jews and minorities were persecuted and massacred. It was only 80 years ago, in 1945, that Austria became a democracy again.