BENEDICTA MARZINOTTO

Summary — This article analysis the recurrence of the expression Sonderfall ("special case ") and of terms with similar semantic affìliation, Òsterreichlösung, Alleingang nach Brüssel, sui generis membership, in Austria’s domestic and international political discourse as well as in the academic literature. By looking at the image’s longevity in Austrian political discourse and at its good reception abroad, the paper argues that national leaders have been very successful in exploiting the argument in order to obtain concessions in various programmes of European integration. Everything started with Austria’s recognition as special case in the Marshall Plan and went on until its official entry into the EU in 1995 which, surprisingly enough, did not require Austria’s formal rejection of its permanent neutrality in spite of de facto coincidence between EU and NATO. The peculiarity argument has not been insisted upon only in the Republic’s diplomatic relations but also in domestic discourses. Again, the main goal has been a strategic one as the special case-label contributed, after 1945, to create a new Austrian identity to be opposed both to the Habsburgic past and to the quite recent memory of the Anschluss with Germany. Notwithstanding the fact that the neutrality's raison d'être had pratically collapsed in 1989, its potential abolition, as it was discussed in the early 1990s, would have in fact meant a great loss for the country's national identity. As to the theoretical framework, Putnam's "two-level game" is here adopted to make sense out of the Government's simultaneous attention to the domestic and the international context when arguing about the country's distinctiveness in the European order; this model helps also to grasp the Government's success in doing so. As a conclusion, some reflections on the importance of political rhetoric for a small country's diplomatic relations and national identity construction - especially within the context of increasing international communication - will follow.