Die Kunst der Freiheit: In Zeiten zunehmender Unfreiheit (German Edition) eBook: Alexander Van der Bellen: Books
(Mike Hammer, Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe - die Helden ameri...)
Mike Hammer, Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe - die Helden amerikanischer Kriminalromane gaben dem jungen Alexander Van der Bellen ein Gefühl dafür, was Freiheit ist. Aufgewachsen im Tiroler Kaunertal, erzählt der ehemalige Wirtschaftsprofessor und Grün-Politiker erstmals Details über seine russischen Vorfahren, kleinbürgerliche Gymnasialprofessoren, befreiende Lektüre, das Aufbrechen der stockkonservativen Gesellschaft in Österreich ab 1968 und seine grünen Anfänge. Der rote Faden seiner Erinnerungen und Anmerkungen ist der Begriff der Freiheit - und seine aktuelle Gefährdung durch falsche Reaktionen auf Terroranschläge, durch drohende Einschränkungen von EU-Grundfreiheiten, aber auch durch die leichtfertige Preisgabe der Privatsphäre im Internet. Nachdenklich und präzise räsoniert Van der Bellen über Alltägliches und Politisches, Vergangenes und Zukünftiges, Lokales und Globales: wie er sich über den Puritanismus hinter der Anti-Raucher-Gesetzgebung ärgert, warum akademische Dünkel absolut kontraproduktiv sind, persönliche Erweckungserlebnisse, warum er das Ernst-Strasser-Urteil zutiefst ungerecht empfindet sowie welchem Politikerkollegen zu trauen ist.
Öffentliche Unternehmen zwischen Markt und Staat (Pocket Wissenschaft : Ökonomie) (German Edition)
(Öffentliche Unternehmen zwischen Markt und Staat (Pocket...)
Öffentliche Unternehmen zwischen Markt und Staat (Pocket Wissenschaft : Ökonomie) (German Edition) [Alexander van der Bellen] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.
Alexander Van der Bellen He previously served as a professor of economics at the University of Vienna, and after joining politics, as the spokesman of the Austrian Green Party.
Background
Ethnicity:
As a member of the noble Russian Van der Bellen family of Dutch ancestry, he was born in Austria to aristocratic Russian and Estonian parents who were refugees of Stalinism, and became a naturalised Austrian citizen together with his parents in 1958.
Van der Bellen, who is known privately by the nickname “Sascha” (a Russian diminutive of Alexander), was born in Vienna, the son of Alexander Konstantin (1898–1966), and Alma (née Siibold [Siebold, Sieboldt]; 1907–1993). His father was an aristocratic Russian-born banker of Baltic German, Russian German, Dutch, and Estonian descent, while his mother was Estonian.
The Van der Bellen family is descended from Johann Abraham van der Bellen, who was born in the Netherlands and who moved to the Russian Empire in the 18th century, and who volunteered for service at a hospital in Moscow and who later became a military doctor in Pskov. In Russia, the family was recognized as noble in the early 19th century and many family members held prominent roles in the local government of Pskov. Van der Bellen’s grandfather, Aleksander von der Bellen (1859–1924), was a liberal politician who was head of the local Pskov government before 1918 when the Imperial German Army invaded Pskov during the Russian Civil War. In the summer of 1919, when Pskov was briefly occupied by the Estonian Army, Van der Bellen’s grandparents, father, and uncles fled the advancing Bolshevik Red Army and settled in the newly independent Estonia.
The surname was spelled “von der Bellen” in Imperial Russia, with “von der” being a nobiliary particle. The family changed the spelling of the name to the Dutch “Van der Bellen” (formerly also “Van-Der-Bellen”) in Estonia, where all privileges of the nobility had been abolished, and where the use of the German particle von as an indicator of noble origin in surnames (as was common in Russia) was illegal.
Education
In 1962, he graduated from the Akademisches Gymnasium in Innsbruck. He studied economics at the University of Innsbruck and received a doctorate in 1970. From 1968 to 1970 he worked as an assistant at the Institute of Public Finance at the University of Innsbruck, and from 1972 to 1974 at the International Institute of Management of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center in West Berlin. He obtained his habilitation in economics in 1975.
Career
In 1976, he was appointed associate professor at the University of Innsbruck. In 1980, he became a professor of economics at the University of Vienna. Subsequently, he took over the chair for economics there. From 1990 to 1994 he was dean of the faculty for social sciences and economics at the University of Vienna.
Van der Bellen is an expert on planning and financing processes in the public sector, infrastructure financing, fiscal policy, public expenditure, government regulation policy, public enterprises and environmental and transport policy.
A former member of the Social Democratic Party, Van der Bellen became Member of the National Council of Austria (Nationalrat) for the Austrian Green Party in 1994. On 13 December 1997 he became their federal spokesperson, and in 1999 became chairman of the Greens Parliamentary Party in the National Council. He resigned after the September 2008 election, when the Greens lost votes for the first time in a decade. In 2010 he became Commissioner of the City of Vienna for Universities and Research, and in 2012 he left Parliament and joined the Vienna City Council.
Van der Bellen ran as a nominally independent candidate supported by the Green Party in the 2016 presidential election, and finished second in the first round before winning the second round against right-wing Freedom Party candidate Norbert Hofer.
In the close second round Van der Bellen won 50.3% of the votes cast to Norbert Hofer’s 49.7%, a margin of 30,863 votes. On 1 July 2016, a week before he was to take office, the results of the second round of voting were annulled by the Constitutional Court of Austria, requiring the election to be re-held.
On 4 December 2016 Van der Bellen defeated Hofer in the re-run of the election with 53.8% of the votes, increasing his margin of victory in terms of votes received by a factor of ten despite predictions that the new election would be similarly close.
The fresh election saw an increase in voter turnout, from 72.7% in May to 74.2%, defying predictions that election fatigue and cold temperatures would lead to a reduction in participation. Hofer conceded soon after the first exit polls were reported.
When sworn in, Van der Bellen became the first nationally elected European head of state with a green background: in 2015, Raimonds Vējonis of the Latvian Green Party became that nation’s president through an indirect election. Van der Bellen was sworn in on 26 January 2017.
After his inaugural speech, he met with the Kern government and was greeted with a military ceremony as the new commander-in-chief of the Bundesheer.
Achievements
In May 2004, Van der Bellen received the Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold with Star for services to the Austrian republic.
(Öffentliche Unternehmen zwischen Markt und Staat (Pocket...)
Religion
Van der Bellen was raised in the Lutheran religion, but has ceased to practice it or espouse a belief in God; however, he professes himself a secular follower of the moral precepts of the New Testament.
Politics
In 2001, Van der Bellen said that he turned from an “arrogant anti-capitalist” into a “broad-minded left-liberal” over the course of his political career. In his 2015 autobiography, Van der Bellen described himself as a liberal positioned in the political centre while downplaying his earlier description as left-liberal, and said he was inspired by the Anglo-Saxon liberal tradition, particularly John Stuart Mill. He is strongly supportive of the European Union, and advocates European federalism. During the 2016 presidential election, he appealed to the political centre and used “Unser Präsident der Mitte” (Our President of the Centre) for his campaign slogan.
Van der Bellen has argued that Europe should accept refugees who have fled to Europe from war zones in Syria and elsewhere and has often mentioned his own background as the son of refugees in debates. He has opposed the government’s decision to impose a limit on how many asylum-seekers it will allow into Austria.
Van der Bellen has commented that due to emerging Islamophobia and prejudice against women wearing headscarves, non-Muslim women might also wear headscarves as a sign of solidarity and as to protect the freedom of expression of women who wear headscarves on religious grounds. The remarks were criticized widely, especially on the political right.
Van der Bellen has criticized U.S. President Donald Trump. He has opined that the British withdrawal from the European Union is damaging to the economies of both the United Kingdom and Europe. He is opposed to recognizing the Russian annexation of Crimea. He has stated that the Austrian embassy in Israel should remain in Tel Aviv.
Van der Bellen has criticized Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his supporters after mass pro-Erdoğan protests by Turks in Austria, saying: “In Austria, there is freedom to demonstrate as long as it is peaceful. Everyone that accepts the right to demonstrate, has to see that the same rights – such as freedom of speech, press freedom, the independent justice system, and freedom to demonstrate are being denied in Turkey by President Erdogan.”
Membership
A former member of the Social Democratic Party, Van der Bellen became Member of the National Council of Austria (Nationalrat) for the Austrian Green Party in 1994. On 13 December 1997 he became their federal spokesperson, and in 1999 became chairman of the Greens Parliamentary Party in the National Council. He resigned after the September 2008 election, when the Greens lost votes for the first time in a decade.
Connections
Van der Bellen married his long-term girlfriend, Doris (née Schmidauer), in December 2015. Earlier in the year and by mutual consent, he was divorced from his first wife of many years, Brigitte, with whom he has two adult sons. Schmidauer has expressed a desire to continue working while she serves as Austria’s First Lady; she has been involved with the Green Party since 1989 and at the time of Van der Bellen’s election is responsible for personnel and management of the Green Party Parliamentary Club, a position she has held since at least July 2013.
