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Availability heuristic

The availability heuristic, also known as availability bias, is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method, or decision. This heuristic, operating on the notion that, if something can be recalled, it must be important, or at least more important than alternative solutions not as readily recalled, is inherently biased toward recently acquired information.

The mental availability of an action's consequences is positively related to those consequences' perceived magnitude. In other words, the easier it is to recall the consequences of something, the greater those consequences are often perceived to be. Most notably, people often rely on the content of their recall if its implications are not called into question by the difficulty they have in recalling it.

Overview and history
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman began work on a series of papers examining "heuristic and biases" used in judgment under uncertainty. Prior to that, the predominant view in the field of human judgment was that humans are rational actors. Kahneman and Tversky explained that judgment under uncertainty often relies on a limited number of simplifying heuristics rather than extensive algorithmic processing. Soon, this idea spread beyond academic psychology, into law, medicine, and political science. This research questioned the descriptive adequacy of idealized models of judgment, and offered insights into the cognitive processes that explained human error without invoking motivated irrationality. One simplifying strategy people may rely on is the tendency to make a judgment about the frequency of an event based on how many similar instances are brought to mind. In 1973, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman first studied this phenomenon and labeled it the "availability heuristic". An availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method, or decision. As follows, people tend to use a readily available fact to base their beliefs on a comparably distant concept. There has been much research done with this heuristic, but studies on the issue are still questionable with regard to the underlying process. Studies illustrate that manipulations intended to increase the subjective experience of ease of recall are also likely to affect the amount of recall. Furthermore, this makes it difficult to determine whether the obtained estimates of frequency, likelihood, or typicality are based on participants' phenomenal experiences or on a biased sample of recalled information.

However, some textbooks have chosen the latter interpretation introducing the availability heuristic as "one's judgments are always based on what comes to mind". For example, if a person is asked whether there are more words in the English language that contain a t or a k, the person will probably be able to think of more words that begin with the letter t, concluding that t is more frequent than k. In this Wikipedia article itself, for example, there are multiple instances of words such as "likely", "make", "take", "ask", "work" and indeed "Wikipedia", but (aside from names) only a couple of initial K's: "know" and "key".

Research
Chapman (1967) described a bias in the judgment of the frequency with which two events co-occur. This demonstration showed that the co-occurrence of paired stimuli resulted in participants overestimating the frequency of the pairings. To test this idea, participants were given information about several hypothetical mental patients. The data for each patient consisted of a clinical diagnosis and a drawing made by the patient. Later, participants estimated the frequency with which each diagnosis had been accompanied by various features of the drawing. The subjects vastly overestimated the frequency of this co-occurrence (such as suspiciousness and peculiar eyes). This effect was labeled the illusory correlation. Tversky and Kahneman suggested that availability provides a natural account for the illusory-correlation effect. The strength of the association between two events could provide the basis for the judgment of how frequently the two events co-occur. When the association is strong, it becomes more likely to conclude that the events have been paired frequently. Strong associations will be thought of as having occurred together frequently.

In Tversky & Kahneman's first examination of availability heuristics, subjects were asked, "If a random word is taken from an English text, is it more likely that the word starts with a K, or that K is the third letter?" They argue that English-speaking people would immediately think of many words that begin with the letter "K" (kangaroo, kitchen, kale), but that it would take a more concentrated effort to think of any words in which "K" is the third letter (acknowledge, ask). Results indicated that participants overestimated the number of words that began with the letter "K" and underestimated the number of words that had "K" as the third letter. Tversky and Kahneman concluded that people answer questions like these by comparing the availability of the two categories and assessing how easily they can recall these instances. In other words, it is easier to think of words that begin with "K", more than words with "K" as the third letter. Thus, people judge words beginning with a "K" to be a more common occurrence. In reality, however, a typical text contains twice as many words that have "K" as the third letter than "K" as the first letter.

In Tversky and Kahneman's seminal paper, they include findings from several other studies, which also show support for the availability heuristic. Apart from their findings in the "K" study, they also found:
 * When participants were shown two visual structures and asked to pick the structure that had more paths, participants saw more paths in the structure that had more obvious available paths. In the structure that participants chose, there were more columns and shorter obvious paths, making it more available to them. When participants were asked to complete tasks involving estimation, they would often underestimate the end result. Participants were basing their final estimation on a quick first impression of the problem. Participants particularly struggled when the problems consisted of multiple steps. This occurred because participants were basing their estimation on an initial impression. Participants failed to account for the high rate of growth in the later steps due to the impression they formed in the initial steps. This was shown again in a task that asked participants to estimate the answer to a multiplication task, in which the numbers were presented as either 1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8 or 8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1. Participants who were presented the equation with the larger numbers first (8x7x6...), estimated a significantly higher result than participants with the lower numbers first (1x2x3...). Participants were given a short amount of time to make the estimation, thus participants based their estimates off of what was easily available, which in this case was the first few numbers in the sequence.

Explanations
Many researchers have attempted to identify the psychological process which creates the availability heuristic.

Tversky and Kahneman argue that the number of examples recalled from memory is used to infer the frequency with which such instances occur. In an experiment to test this explanation, participants listened to lists of names containing either 19 famous women and 20 less famous men or 19 famous men and 20 less famous women. Subsequently, some participants were asked to recall as many names as possible whereas others were asked to estimate whether male or female names were more frequent on the list. The names of the famous celebrities were recalled more frequently compared to those of the less famous celebrities. The majority of the participants incorrectly judged that the gender associated with more famous names had been presented more often than the gender associated with less famous names. Tversky and Kahneman argue that although the availability heuristic is an effective strategy in many situations when judging probability, use of this heuristic can lead to predictable patterns of errors.

Schwarz and his colleagues, on the other hand, proposed the ease of retrieval explanation, wherein the ease with which examples come to mind, not the number of examples, is used to infer the frequency of a given class. In a study by Schwarz and colleagues to test their explanation, participants were asked to recall either six or twelve examples of their assertive or very unassertive behavior. Participants were later asked to rate their own assertiveness. Pretesting had indicated that although most participants were capable of generating twelve examples, this was a difficult task. The results indicated that participants rated themselves as more assertive after describing six examples of assertive compared with unassertive behavior, but rated themselves as less assertive after describing twelve examples of assertive compared with unassertive behavior. The study reflected that the extent to which recalled content impacted judgment was determined by the ease with which the content could be brought to mind (it was easier to recall 6 examples than 12), rather than the amount of content brought to mind.

Research by Vaughn (1999) looked at the effects of uncertainty on the use of the availability heuristic. College students were asked to list either three or eight different study methods they could use in order to get an A on their final exams. The researchers also manipulated the time during the semester they would ask the students to complete the questionnaire. Approximately half of the participants were asked for their study methods during the third week of classes, and the other half were asked on the last day of classes. Next, participants were asked to rate how likely they would be to get an A in their easiest and hardest classes. Participants were then asked to rank the difficulty they experienced in recalling the examples they had previously listed. The researchers hypothesized that students would use the availability heuristic, based on the number of study methods they listed, to predict their grade only when asked at the beginning of the semester and about their hardest final. Students were not expected to use the availability heuristic to predict their grades at the end of the semester or about their easiest final. The researchers predicted this use of the availability heuristic because participants would be uncertain about their performance throughout the semester. The results indicated that students used the availability heuristic, based on the ease of recall of the study methods they listed, to predict their performance when asked at the beginning of the semester and about their hardest final. If the student listed only three study methods, they predicted a higher grade at the end of the semester only on their hardest final. If students listed eight study methods, they had a harder time recalling the methods and thus predicted a lower final grade on their hardest final. The results were not seen in the easy final condition because the students were certain they would get an A, regardless of the study method. The results supported this hypothesis and gave evidence to the fact that levels of uncertainty affect the use of the availability heuristic.

Media
After seeing news stories about child abductions, people may judge that the likelihood of this event is greater. Media coverage can help fuel a person's example bias with widespread and extensive coverage of unusual events, such as homicide or airline accidents, and less coverage of more routine, less sensational events, such as common diseases or car accidents. For example, when asked to rate the probability of a variety of causes of death, people tend to rate "newsworthy" events as more likely because they can more readily recall an example from memory. Moreover, unusual and vivid events like homicides, shark attacks, or lightning are more often reported in mass media than common and un-sensational causes of death like common diseases.

For example, many people think that the likelihood of dying from shark attacks is greater than that of dying from being hit by falling airplane parts when more people actually die from falling airplane parts. When a shark attack occurs, the deaths are widely reported in the media whereas deaths as a result of being hit by falling airplane parts are rarely reported in the media.

In a 2010 study exploring how vivid television portrayals are used when forming social reality judgments, people watching vivid violent media gave higher estimates of the prevalence of crime and police immorality in the real world than those not exposed to vivid television. These results suggest that television violence does in fact have a direct causal impact on participants' social reality beliefs. Repeated exposure to vivid violence leads to an increase in people's risk estimates about the prevalence of crime and violence in the real world. Counter to these findings, researchers from a similar study argued that these effects may be due to effects of new information. Researchers tested the new information effect by showing movies depicting dramatic risk events and measuring their risk assessment after the film. Contrary to previous research, there were no long-term effects on risk perception due to exposure to dramatic movies. However, the study did find evidence of idiosyncratic effects of the movies - that is, people reacted immediately after the movies with enhanced or diminished risk beliefs, which faded after a period of 10 days.

Another measurable effect is the inaccurate estimation of the fraction of deaths caused by terrorism compared to homicides with other causes.

Health
Researchers examined the role of cognitive heuristics in the AIDS risk-assessment process. 331 physicians reported worry about on-the-job HIV exposure, and experience with patients who have HIV. By analyzing answers to questionnaires handed out, researchers concluded that availability of AIDS information did not relate strongly to perceived risk.

Participants in a 1992 study read case descriptions of hypothetical patients who varied on their sex and sexual preference. These hypothetical patients showed symptoms that could have been caused by five different diseases (AIDS, leukemia, influenza, meningitis, or appendicitis). Participants were instructed to indicate which disease they thought the patient had and then they rated patient responsibility and interaction desirability. Consistent with the availability heuristic, either the more common (influenza) or the more publicized (AIDS) disease was chosen.

Business and economy
One study sought to analyze the role of the availability heuristic in financial markets. Researchers defined and tested two aspects of the availability heuristic:

 * Outcome Availability – availability of positive and negative investment outcomes, and
 * Risk Availability – availability of financial risk.

On days of substantial stock market moves, abnormal stock price reactions to upgrades are weaker, than those to downgrades. These availability effects are still significant even after controlling for event-specific and company-specific factors.

Similarly, research has pointed out that under the availability heuristic, humans are not reliable because they assess probabilities by giving more weight to current or easily recalled information instead of processing all relevant information. Since information regarding the current state of the economy is readily available, researchers attempted to expose the properties of business cycles to predict the availability bias in analysts' growth forecasts. They showed the availability heuristic to play a role in analysis of forecasts and influence investments because of this.

In effect, investors are using the availability heuristic to make decisions and subsequently, may be obstructing their own investment success. An investor's lingering perceptions of a dire market environment may be causing them to view investment opportunities through an overly negative lens, making it less appealing to consider taking on investment risk, no matter how small the returns on perceived "safe" investments. To illustrate, Franklin Templeton's annual Global Investor Sentiment Survey 1 asked individuals how they believed the S&P 500 Index performed in 2009, 2010, and 2011. 66 percent of respondents stated that they believed the market was either flat or down in 2009, 48 percent said the same about 2010 and 53 percent also said the same about 2011. In reality, the S&P 500 saw 26.5 percent annual returns in 2009, 15.1 percent annual returns in 2010, and 2.1 percent annual returns in 2011, meaning lingering perceptions based on dramatic, painful events are impacting decision-making even when those events are over.

Additionally, a study by Hayibor and Wasieleski found that the availability of others who believe that a particular act is morally acceptable is positively related to others' perceptions of the morality of that act. This suggests that availability heuristic also has an effect on ethical decision making and ethical behavior in organizations.

Education
A study done by Craig R. Fox provides an example of how availability heuristics can work in the classroom. In this study, Fox tests whether the difficulty of recall influences judgment, specifically with course evaluations among college students. In his study he had two groups complete a course evaluation form. He asked the first group to write two recommended improvements for the course (a relatively easy task) and then write two positives about the class. The second group was asked to write ten suggestions where the professor could improve (a relatively difficult task) and then write two positive comments about the course. At the end of the evaluation, both groups were asked to rate the course on a scale from one to seven. The results showed that students asked to write ten suggestions (difficult task) rated the course less harshly because it was more difficult for them to recall the information. Most of the students in the group that was asked to fill in 10 suggestions didn't fill in more than two being unable to recall more instances where they were unsatisfied with the class. Students asked to do the easier evaluation with only two complaints had less difficulty in terms of availability of information, so they rated the course more harshly.

Another study by Marie Geurten sought to test the availability heuristic in young children. Children of varying ages (from 4 to 8 years old) were tasked with generating a list of names, with some being asked for a shorter list and some for a longer list. The study then assessed the children's own impressions of their ability to recall names. Those children who were tasked with generating a shorter list had a higher perception of their ability to recall names than those who were tasked with generating a longer list. According to the study, this suggests that the children based their assessment of their recall abilities on their subjective experience of ease of recall.

Criminal justice
The media usually focuses on violent or extreme cases, which are more readily available in the public's mind. This may come into play when it is time for the judicial system to evaluate and determine the proper punishment for a crime. In one study, respondents rated how much they agreed with hypothetical laws and policies such as "Would you support a law that required all offenders convicted of unarmed muggings to serve a minimum prison term of two years?" Participants then read cases and rated each case on several questions about punishment. As hypothesized, respondents recalled more easily from long-term memory stories that contain severe harm, which seemed to influence their sentencing choices to make them push for harsher punishments. This can be eliminated by adding high concrete or high contextually distinct details into the crime stories about less severe injuries.

A similar study asked jurors and college students to choose sentences on four severe criminal cases in which prison was a possible but not an inevitable sentencing outcome. Respondents answering questions about court performance on a public opinion formulated a picture of what the courts do and then evaluated the appropriateness of that behavior. Respondents recalled public information about crime and sentencing. This type of information is incomplete because the news media present a highly selective and non-representative selection of crime, focusing on the violent and extreme, rather than the ordinary. This makes most people think that judges are too lenient. But, when asked to choose the punishments, the sentences given by students were equal to or less severe than those given by judges. In other words, the availability heuristic made people believe that judges and jurors were too lenient in the courtroom, but the participants gave similar sentences when placed in the position of the judge, suggesting that the information they recalled was not correct.

Researchers in 1989 predicted that mock jurors would rate a witness to be more deceptive if the witness testified truthfully before lying than when the witness was caught lying first before telling the truth. If the availability heuristic played a role in this, lying second would remain in jurors' minds (since it was more recent) and they would most likely remember the witness lying over the truthfulness. To test the hypothesis, 312 university students played the roles of mock jurors and watched a videotape of a witness presenting testimony during a trial. Results confirmed the hypothesis, as mock jurors were most influenced by the most recent act.

Perceived risk
Previous studies have indicated that explaining a hypothetical event makes the event seem more likely through the creation of causal connections. However, such effects could arise through the use of the availability heuristic; that is, subjective likelihood is increased by an event becoming easier to imagine.

A study done asked those participating to pick between two illnesses. Those doing the study wanted to know which disease they thought was more likely to cause death. In the study, they asked participants to choose between a stroke and asthma as to which one someone was more likely to die from. The researchers concluded that it depended on what experiences were available to them. If they knew someone or heard of someone that died from one of the diseases that is the one they perceived to be a higher risk to die from.

Vividness effects
Two studies with 108 undergraduates investigated vivid information and its impact on social judgment and the availability heuristic and its role in mediating vividness effects.

In study 1, Subjects listened to a tape recording that described a woman who lived with her 7-year-old son. Subjects then heard arguments about the woman's fitness as a parent and were asked to draw their own conclusions regarding her fitness or unfitness. The concrete and colorful language were found to influence judgments about the woman's fitness as a mother.

In study 2, a series of male and female names were presented to subjects; for each name, subjects were told the university affiliation of the individual (Yale or Stanford). When some names were presented, subjects were simultaneously shown a photograph that purportedly portrayed the named individual. Subsequently, to assess what subjects could remember (as a measure of availability), each name was represented, as well as the appropriate photograph if one had been originally presented. The study considered whether the display or non-display of photographs biased subjects' estimates as to the percentage of Yale (vs Stanford) students in the sample of men and women whose names appeared on the original list, and whether these estimated percentages were causally related to the respondents' memory for the college affiliations of the individual students on the list. The presence of photographs affected judgments about the proportion of male and female students at the two universities. Such effects have typically been attributed to the ready accessibility of vividly presented information in memory—that is, to the availability heuristic.

In both studies, vividness affected both availability (ability to recall) and judgments. However, causal modeling results indicated that the availability heuristic did not play a role in the judgment process.

Judging frequency and probability
In general, availability is correlated with ecological frequency, but it is also affected by other factors. Consequently, the reliance on the availability heuristic leads to systematic biases. Such biases are demonstrated in the judged frequency of classes of words, of combinatoric outcomes, and of repeated events. The phenomenon of illusory correlation is explained as an availability bias.

In the original Tversky and Kahneman (1973) research, three major factors that are discussed are the frequency of repetition, frequency of co-occurrence, and illusory correlation. The use of frequency of repetition aids in the retrieval of relevant instances. The idea behind this phenomenon is that the more an instance is repeated within a category or list, the stronger the link between the two instances becomes. Individuals then use the strong association between the instances to determine the frequency of an instance. Consequently, the association between the category or list and the specific instance often influences frequency judgement. Frequency of co-occurrence strongly relates to Frequency of repetition, such that the more an item-pair is repeated, the stronger the association between the two items becomes, leading to a bias when estimating the frequency of co-occurrence. Due to the phenomena of frequency of co-occurrence, illusory correlations also often play a big role.

Another factor that affects the availability heuristic in frequency and probability is exemplars. Exemplars are the typical examples that stand out during the process of recall. If asked what participants thought different set sizes were (how many men and how many women are in the class), participants would use exemplars to determine the size of each set. Participants would derive their answers on ease of recall of the names that stood out. Participants read a list of names of members of a class for 30 seconds, and then participants were asked the male to female ratio of the class. The participant's answer would depend on the recall of exemplars. If the participant reading the list recalled seeing more common male names, such as Jack, but the only female names in the class were uncommon names, such as Deepika, then the participant will recall that there were more men than women. The opposite would be true if there were more common female names on the list and uncommon male names. Due to the availability heuristic, names that are more easily available are more likely to be recalled, and can thus alter judgments of probability.

Another example of the availability heuristic and exemplars would be seeing a shark in the ocean. Seeing a shark has a greater impact on an individual's memory than seeing a dolphin. If someone sees both sharks and dolphins in the ocean, they will be less aware of seeing the dolphins, because the dolphins had less of an impact on their memory. Due to the greater impact of seeing a shark, the availability heuristic can influence the probability judgement of the ratio of sharks and dolphins in the water. Thus, an individual who saw both a shark and a dolphin would assume a higher ratio of sharks in the water, even if there are more dolphins in reality.

Ease of recall as a critique
One of the earliest and most powerful critiques of the original Tversky and Kahneman study on the availability heuristic was the Schwarz et al. study which found that the ease of recall was a key component in determining whether a concept became available. Many studies since this criticism of the original availability heuristic model have repeated this initial criticism, that the ease of recall factor became an integral facet of the availability heuristic itself (see Research section).

Alternative explanations
Much of the criticism against the availability heuristic has claimed that making use of the content that becomes available in our mind is not based on the ease of recall as suggested by Schwarz et al. For example, it could be argued that recalling more words that begin with K than words with the third letter being K could arise from how we categorize and process words into our memory. If we categorize words by the first letter and recall them through the same process, this would show more support for the representative heuristic than the availability heuristic. Based on the possibility of explanations such as these, some researchers have claimed that the classic studies on the availability heuristic are too vague in that they fail to account for people's underlying mental processes. Indeed, a study conducted by Wanke et al. demonstrated this scenario can occur in situations used to test the availability heuristic.

A second line of study has shown that frequency estimation may not be the only strategy we use when making frequency judgments. A recent line of research has shown that our situational working memory can access long-term memories, and this memory retrieval process includes the ability to determine more accurate probabilities.

title: Availability heuristic


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Islamic Salvation Front

The Islamic Salvation Front (الجبهة الإسلامية للإنقاذ; Front islamique du salut, FIS) was an Islamist political party in Algeria. The party had two major leaders representing its two bases of its support; Abbassi Madani appealed to pious small businessmen, and Ali Belhadj appealed to the angry, often unemployed youth of Algeria.

Officially made legal as a political party in September 1989, less than a year later the FIS received more than half of valid votes cast by Algerians in the 1990 local government elections. When it appeared to be winning a general election in January 1992, a military coup dismantled the party, interning thousands of its officials in the Sahara. It was officially banned two months later. Its armed wing, the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS), fought in the Algerian Civil War against the Algerian government from July 1994 until its dissolution in January 2000.

Goals
The founders and leaders of the FIS did not agree on all issues, but agreed on the core objective of establishing an Islamic State ruled by sharia law. FIS hurriedly assembled a platform in 1989, the Projet de Programme du Front Islamique du Salut, which was widely criticized as vague.

Its 1990 electoral victory, giving it control of many local governments, led to the imposing of the veil on female municipal employees, pressuring of liquor stores, video shops and other establishments perceived as un-Islamic to close, and segregation of bathing areas by gender.

Elimination of the French language and culture was an important issue for many in the FIS such as co-leader Ali Benhadj, who in 1990 declared his intention "to ban France from Algeria intellectually and ideologically, and be done, once and for all, with those whom France has nursed with her poisoned milk." Devout activists removed satellite dishes of households receiving European satellite broadcast in favor of Arab satellite dishes receiving Saudi broadcasts. Educationally, the party was committed to continue the Arabization of the educational system by shifting the language of instruction in more institutions, such as medical and technological schools, from French to Arabic. Large numbers of recent graduates, the first post-independence generation educated mainly in Arabic, liked this measure, as they had found the continued use of French in higher education and public life jarring and disadvantageous.

Following the first National Assembly ballot, the FIS issued a second pamphlet. Economically, it strongly criticized Algeria's planned economy, urging the need to protect the private sector and encourage competition – earning it support from traders and small businessmen – and urged the establishment of Islamic banking. However, leaders Abbassi Madani and Abdelkader Hachani both made statements opposed to opening the country to competition from foreign business.

Socially, it suggested that women should be given a financial incentive to stay at home rather than working outside, thus introducing sexual segregation (Ali Belhadj called it immoral for men and women to work in the same office) with the supposed goal of increasing the number of jobs available to men in a time of chronic unemployment.

Politically, the contradiction between Madani and Belhadj's words was noteworthy: Madani condemned violence "from wherever it came", and expressed his commitment to democracy and resolve to "respect the minority, even if it is composed of one vote".

Belhadj said, "There is no democracy in Islam" and "If people vote against the Law of God... this is nothing other than blasphemy. The ulama will order the death of the offenders who have substituted their authority for that of God".

In an interview with Daniel Pipes and Patrick Clawson, Anwar Haddam rejected this view of Belhadj, saying, "He has been misquoted. He has been accused of things out of bitterness. He wrote a book in which he expressed himself clearly in favor of democracy. In it, he writes on page 91 that "the West progressed by defeating tyranny and preserving freedoms; this is the secret of the Western world's remarkable progress." Belhadj refers many times to the Western world and to those very values that people are trying to deny us within our own borders."

Background
Social conditions that led to formation and popularity of the FIS included a population explosion in the 1960s and 70s that outstripped the stagnant economy's ability to supply jobs, housing, food and urban infrastructure to massive numbers of young in the urban areas; a collapse in price of oil, whose sale supplied 95% of Algeria's exports and 60% of the government's budget; a single-party state ostensibly based on socialism, anti-imperialism, and popular democracy but ruled by high level military and party nomenklatura from the east side of the country; "corruption on a grand scale"; and in response to these issues, "the most serious riots since independence" occurred in October 1988 when thousands of urban youth took control of the streets.

Earlier Salafist movements in Algeria included the Association of Muslim Ulemas founded in 1931 by Abdel Hamid Ben Badis, which like the Muslim Brotherhood believed that religion should be the "absolute focus of private life and society", preached against the "superstitions" of popular Islam and French culture or secularism in Algeria, but did not venture into politics or promotion of an Islamic state.

After independence the government of Houari Boumediene began a campaign of Arabization and Islamization against the French language which was still dominant in higher education and the professions. It recruited Egyptians to Arabize and de-Frenchify the school system, including a substantial number of Muslim Brotherhood members. Many of the generation of "strictly Arabphone teachers" trained by the Brothers adopted the beliefs of their teachers and went on to form the basis of an "Islamist intelligentsia" that made up the FIS (Ali Belhadj being a prime example).

In the 1980s the government imported two renowned Islamic scholars, Mohammed al-Ghazali and Yusuf al-Qaradawi, to "strengthen the religious dimension" of the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) party's "nationalist ideology". However, both clerics were "fellow travelers" of the Muslim Brotherhood, supporters of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies, and supported "Islamic awakening" in Algeria, giving only "lip service" to the government.

Another Islamist, Mustafa Bouyali, a "gifted inflammatory preacher" and veteran of the Algerian independence struggle, called for the application of the sharia and creating of an Islamic state by jihad. After persecution by the security services he founded the Mouvement Islamique Arme (MIA), "a loose association of tiny groups", with himself as amir in 1982. His group carried out a series of "bold attacks" against the regime and was able to carry it fight on underground for five years before Bouyali was killed in February 1987.

Also in the 1980s, several hundred youth left Algeria for camps of Peshawar to fight jihad in Afghanistan. As Algeria was a close ally of the jihadists' enemy the Soviet Union, these jihadists tended to consider the Afghan jihad a "prelude" to jihad against the Algerian FLN. After the Marxist government in Afghanistan fell, many of the Salafist jihadis returned to Algeria and supported the FIS and later the GIA.

Also adding to the strength of salafist "Islamic revivalism" and political Islam in Algeria was the weakness (or nonexistence) of any alternative in the form of popular Muslim brotherhoods which had been dismantled by the FLN government in retaliation for lack of support and whose land had been confiscated and redistributed by the FLN government after independence.

During and after the 1988 October Riots, Islamists "set about building bridges to the young urban poor". The riots "petered out" after meetings between the President Chadli and Islamists Ali Belhadj and members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Founding
On 3 November 1988, the Algerian Constitution was amended to allow parties other than the ruling FLN to operate legally. The FIS was born shortly afterwards in Algiers on 18 February 1989, led by an elderly sheikh, Abbassi Madani, and a charismatic young mosque preacher, Ali Belhadj. Its views ranged across a wide (but not complete ) spectrum of Islamist opinion, exemplified by its two leaders. Abbassi Madani, a professor at University of Algiers and ex-independence fighter, represented a relatively moderate religious conservatism and symbolically connected the party to the Algerian War of Independence, the traditionally emphasized source of the ruling FLN's legitimacy. His aim was to "Islamise the regime without altering society's basic fabric." The party came into legal existence on 16 September 1989.

Ali Belhadj, a high school teacher, appealed to a younger and less educated class. An impassioned orator, he was known for his ability to both enrage and calm at will the tens of thousands of young hittiestes who came to hear him speak. However, his radical speeches alarmed non-Islamists and feminists. He purportedly represented a Salafi mindset. Madani sometimes expressed support for multiparty democracy, whereas Belhadj denounced it as a potential threat to sharia. Their support of free market trading and opposition to the ruling elite also attracted middle class traders, who felt left out of the economy.

As in other Muslim countries where the political system allowed opposition and free elections for the first time, the FIS benefited from being a religious party. Unlike the secular parties it had "a coherent network of preachers already in place." Its support base increased rapidly with the help of activists preaching in friendly mosques.

1990 local elections victory
The FIS made "spectacular" progress in the first year of its existence. The first edition of its weekly publication, Al Munqidh, was distributed to 200,000. The FIS-inspired doctors, nurses and rescue teams showed "devotion and effectiveness" helping victims of an earthquake in Tipaza Province. It organized marches and rallies and "applied steady pressure on the state" to force a promise of early elections.

In the first free elections since independence on 12 June 1990, they swept the local elections with 54% of votes cast, almost double that of the FLN and far more than any of the other parties. The FIS took 46% of town assemblies and 55% of wilaya assemblies. Its supporters were especially concentrated in urban areas: it secured 93% of towns/cities of over 50,000. This was the "high point" of FIS influence. Its rapid rise alarmed the government, which moved to curtail the powers of local government.

Once in power in local governments, its administration and its Islamic charity was praised by many as just, equitable, orderly and virtuous, in contrast to its corrupt, wasteful, arbitrary and inefficient FLN predecessors.

The victory in local elections was the "high point" of FIS influence, which benefited from widespread disillusionment with the Algerian ruling party. As time went on non-core supporters began to become disenchanted. The secular, educated, salaried urban middle class began to be concerned over the anti-French language policy.

The Gulf War energized the party, but brought fissures. The FIS had condemned Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, but once it was apparent that Western intervention was inevitable, public opinion shifted and there were massive demonstrations, blood donation drives. When Benhadj delivered a speech in front of the Ministry of Defense building demanding a corp be sent to fight in Iraq's favor, the military took it as a "direct affront" and challenge to the discipline in the armed forces. (Benhadj later appealed unsuccessfully to the armed forces rank and file for a general mutiny. ) Furthermore, his co-leader Madani had received much aid from Iraq's direct enemies, Saudi Arabia and other oil monarchies, supported them and was unhappy about having to defer to Benhadj and the pro-Sadam position.

General strike and arrests of leadership
In May 1991, the FIS called for a general strike to protest the government's redrawing of electoral districts, which it saw as gerrymandering directed against it. The strike itself was a failure, but the demonstrations FIS organized in Algiers were huge. Mass sit-ins were held in one of Algiers largest squares for a week, and the FIS succeeded in pressuring the government. It was persuaded in June to call the strike off by the promise of fair parliamentary elections.

However, disagreements on the strike provoked open dissension among the FIS leadership (the Madjliss ech-Choura), and the prolonged demonstrations alarmed the military. Shortly afterwards the government arrested Madani and Belhadj on 30 June 1991, having already arrested a number of lower-ranking members. The party, however, remained legal in the meantime, and passed to the effective leadership of "djazarists" led by Abdelkader Hachani after four days of contested leadership by Mohamed Said (who was then arrested).

Despite activists anger that its demands for the leaders' release went unheeded, after some deliberation (and expulsion of dissenters such as Said Mekhloufi and Kamareddine Kherbane who advocated direct action against the government), the FIS agreed to participate in the next elections. On 26 December 1991, the FIS won the first round of parliamentary elections, although with one million fewer votes than in the earlier local elections. It won 48% of the overall popular vote, and 188 of the 231 seats contested in that round, putting them far ahead of rivals.

The army saw the seeming certainty of resulting FIS rule as unacceptable. On 11 January 1992, it cancelled the electoral process, forcing President Chadli Bendjedid to resign and bringing in the exiled independence fighter Mohammed Boudiaf to serve as a new president. Many FIS members were arrested, including FIS number three leader Abdelkader Hachani on 22 January. A state of emergency was declared on 9 February, and the government officially dissolved FIS on 4 March. On 12 July, Abbassi Madani and Ali Belhadj were sentenced to 12 years in prison.

40,000 FIS militants and elected FIS officials were interned in tents deep in the Sahara. Mosques were placed under "tight surveillance". Such activists as remained at large took this as a declaration of war, though FIS would not officially call for armed resistance until 1993, attempting to steer a nuanced course of expressing sympathy for the guerrillas without endorsing their actions.

Civil war
Many took to the hills and joined guerrilla groups. The country inexorably slid into a civil war which would claim more than 250,000 lives, from which it only began to emerge at the end of the 1990s. Initially, the guerrillas were led by members of non-FIS groups, such as Mustafa Bouyali's supporters and people who had fought in Afghanistan, although FIS itself established an underground network, led by Mohamed Said and Abderrezak Redjam, setting up clandestine newspapers and even a radio station with close links to the MIA. From late 1992, they also began issuing official statements from abroad, led by Rabah Kebir and Anwar Haddam.

Soon after taking office in 1994, Liamine Zeroual began negotiations with the imprisoned FIS leadership, releasing some prisoners (including such figures as Ali Djeddi and Abdelkader Boukhamkham) by way of encouragement. These first negotiations collapsed in March, as each accused the other of reneging on agreements; but further, initially secret, negotiations would take place over the following months.

Founding of the Islamic Salvation Army
As the radical Armed Islamic Group (Groupe Islamique Armé or GIA), hostile to FIS as well as to the government, rose to the forefront, FIS-loyalist guerrillas, threatened with marginalization, attempted to unite their forces. In July 1994, the MIA, together with the remainder of the MEI and a variety of smaller groups, united as the Islamic Salvation Army (or AIS, a term that had previously sometimes been used as a general label for pro-FIS guerrillas), declaring their allegiance to FIS and thus strengthening FIS' hand for the negotiations. It was initially headed by MIA's Abdelkader Chebouti, who was superseded in November 1994 by MEI's Madani Mezrag.

It rejected all truces and compromises with the government. The AIS favored a long-term jihad directed against the state and its representatives, not civilians. The GIA appealed to the hittistes urban youth, while the AIS support came from the pious middle class.

By the end of 1994, the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS) controlled over half the guerrillas of the east and west, but barely 20% in the center, near the capital, where the GIA were mainly based. Their main leadership was based in the Beni Khettab mountains near Jijel. It issued communiqués condemning the GIA's indiscriminate targeting of women, journalists, and other civilians "not involved in the repression", and attacking its school arson campaign.

Meanwhile, following letters from Madani and Belhadj expressing a commitment to pluralistic democracy and proposing possible solutions to the crisis, the government released both from jail to house arrest on 13 September. However, no let up was observed in the fighting, and the government was unwilling to allow them to consult with FIS figures that remained in prison; the negotiations soon foundered, and at the end of October the government announced the failure of the second round of negotiations, and published incriminating letters from Belhadj that were allegedly found on the body of GIA leader Cherif Gousmi, who had been killed on 26 September.

Work in exile
A few FIS leaders, notably Rabah Kebir, had escaped into exile abroad. During 1994, they carried out negotiations in Italy with other political parties, notably the FLN and FFS, and came out with a mutual agreement on 14 January 1995: the Sant'Egidio platform. This set forth a set of principles: respect for human rights and multiparty democracy, rejection of army rule and dictatorship, recognition of Islam, Arabness, and Berberness as essential aspects of Algerianness, demand for the release of FIS leaders, and an end to extrajudicial killing and torture on all sides. To the surprise of many, even Ali Belhadj endorsed the agreement. However, a crucial signatory was missing: the government itself. As a result, the platform had little if any effect.

Despite the government's extremely hostile reaction to the Rome Platform, though, a third attempt at negotiations took place, starting in April with a letter from Madani condemning acts of violence, and hopes were raised. However, the FIS did not offer enough concessions to satisfy the government, demanding, as usual, that FIS leaders should be released before FIS could call for a ceasefire. In July Zeroual announced that the talks had failed, for the last time.

In 1995, the GIA turned on the AIS in earnest. Reports of battles between the AIS and GIA increased (resulting in an estimated 60 deaths in March 1995 alone), and the GIA reiterated its death threats against FIS and AIS leaders, claiming to be the "sole prosecutor of jihad" and angered by their negotiation attempts. On July 11 Abdelbaki Sahraoui, a co-founder of FIS, was assassinated in Paris; the GIA said that they were responsible, although there was no evidence supporting this. On November 22, 1995, the FIS asked to meet with President Zeroual in order to disband the cycle of violence that was occurring in Algeria

Declaration of ceasefire
The AIS, faced with attacks from both sides and wanting to dissociate itself from the GIA's civilian massacres, declared a unilateral ceasefire on 21 September 1997 (in order to "unveil the enemy who hides behind these abominable massacres" ), and disbanded in 1999. Thousands of AIS fighters surrendered and handed over their weapons to the authorities. In January 2000 those fighters obtained amnesty under the terms of the "Civil Concord" decreed by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika after his election in April 1999. Both Mezrag and Benaïcha offered their services to the authorities to fight the GIA and the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which has links to Al-Qaeda.

On 2 July 2003, Belhadj and Madani were released (the former had been in jail, the latter had been moved to house arrest in 1997). Foreign media were banned from covering the event locally, and FIS itself remains banned. However, their release has had little apparent impact. After a decade of vicious civil conflict, there was little enthusiasm in Algeria for reopening old wounds.

As the civil war jihad impoverished the pious middle class, the AIS lost support to the "moderate" Islamic parties, especially the Hamas party of Mahfoud Nahnah.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Islamic Salvation Front


text:
Stibnite

Stibnite, sometimes called antimonite, is a sulfide mineral with the formula Sb2S3. This soft grey material crystallizes in an orthorhombic space group. It is the most important source for the metalloid antimony. The name is derived from the Greek στίβι through the Latin stibium as the former name for the mineral and the element antimony.

Structure
Stibnite has a structure similar to that of arsenic trisulfide, As2S3. The Sb(III) centers, which are pyramidal and three-coordinate, are linked via bent two-coordinate sulfide ions. However, some studies suggest that the actual coordination polyhedra of antimony are SbS7, with (3+4) coordination at the M1 site and (5+2) at the M2 site. Some of the secondary bonds impart cohesion and are connected with packing. Stibnite is grey when fresh, but can turn superficially black due to oxidation in air.

Properties
The melting point of Sb2S3 is 823 K. The band gap is 1.88 eV at room temperature and it is a photoconductor.

Uses

Pastes of Sb2S3 powder in fat or in other materials have been used since c. 3000 BC as eye cosmetics in the Mediterranean and farther afield; in this use, Sb2S3 is called kohl. It was used to darken the brows and lashes, or to draw a line around the perimeter of the eye.

Antimony trisulfide finds use in pyrotechnic compositions, namely in the glitter and fountain mixtures. Needle-like crystals, "Chinese needles", are used in glitter compositions and white pyrotechnic stars. The "dark pyro" version is used in flash powders to increase their sensitivity and sharpen their report. It is also a component of modern safety matches. It was formerly used in flash compositions, but its use was abandoned due to toxicity and sensitivity to static electricity.

Stibnite was used ever since protodynastic ancient Egypt as a medication and a cosmetic. The Sunan Abi Dawood reports, “prophet Muhammad said: 'Among the best types of collyrium is antimony (ithmid) for it clears the vision and makes the hair sprout.

The 17th century alchemist Eirenaeus Philalethes, also known as George Starkey, describes stibnite in his alchemical commentary An Exposition upon Sir George Ripley's Epistle. Starkey used stibnite as a precursor to philosophical mercury, which was itself a hypothetical precursor to the philosopher's stone.

Occurrence
Stibnite occurs in hydrothermal deposits and is associated with realgar, orpiment, cinnabar, galena, pyrite, marcasite, arsenopyrite, cervantite, stibiconite, calcite, ankerite, barite and chalcedony.

Small deposits of stibnite are common, but large deposits are rare. The world's largest deposit of antimony, the Xikuangshan mine, yields high quality crystals in paragenesis with calcite. It occurs in Canada, Mexico, Peru, Japan, Germany, Romania, Italy, France, England, Algeria, and Kalimantan, Borneo. In the United States it is found in Arkansas, Idaho, Nevada, California, and Alaska.

Historically, the Romans used stibnite mined in Dacia to make colourless glass, the making of which ended when this province was lost to the Roman Empire.

As of May 2007, the largest specimen on public display (1000 pounds) is at the American Museum of Natural History. The largest documented single crystals of stibnite measured ~60×5×5 cm and originated from different locations including Japan, France and Germany.

title: Stibnite


text:
The Greens – The Green Alternative

The Greens – The Green Alternative (Die Grünen – Die Grüne Alternative, ) is a green political party in Austria. The Greens are in a coalition with the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) in the Nehammer government. Before they were part of the Schallenberg government and the Second Kurz government. The current President of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, is from the Green Party.

The party was founded in 1986 under the name "Green Alternative" (Grüne Alternative), following the merger of the more conservative Green party Vereinte Grüne Österreichs (United Greens of Austria VGÖ, founded 1982) and the more progressive party Alternative Liste Österreichs (Alternative List Austria, ALÖ, founded 1982). Since 1993, the party has carried the official name Die Grünen – Die Grüne Alternative (Grüne), but refers to itself in English as "Austrian Greens". There are still differences between the former members of the old Alternative and VGÖ factions within the party, reflected in the differing approaches of the national and state parties.

Apart from ecological issues such as environmental protection, the Greens also campaign for the rights of minorities and advocate a socio-ecological (ökosozial) tax reform. Their basic values according to their charter in 2001 are: "direct democracy, nonviolence, ecology, solidarity, feminism and self-determination". The party is a member of the European Green Party and Global Greens.

History
In 1978 the Austrian Green movement began with the successful campaign to prevent the opening of the nuclear power plant in Zwentendorf (which had been favoured by Bruno Kreisky's government), the Green Party was born in 1984 during the sit-in protests which prevented the Danube power plant at Hainburg from being built.

Federal level
In the 1986 parliamentary elections the Green Party started off with 4.82% of all votes cast and entered parliament with eight National Council mandates. In the early elections to National Council in 2002, the Green Party nationwide received 9.47% of votes, and won 17 mandates to the National Council. At that time, it was the highest number of votes garnered by any European Green party.

When the Greens took their seats in parliament for the first time, they chose to appear somewhat unconventional. They initially refused to adapt their behaviour to that of the other parties; an example of this is their refusal to elect a chairperson (Klubobmann/Klubobfrau) and designated a puppet made out of straw instead. Delegates would appear in parliament dressed in casual wear such as jeans and trainers. Worldwide attention was drawn when the Green delegate Andreas Wabl hoisted a swastika flag on the speakers podium in the Austrian parliament, protesting against then Federal President Kurt Waldheim.

After the national election in 2002, the Greens entered into preliminary negotiations about a possible coalition government with the conservative ÖVP. During negotiations, party leadership was accused of internally black-mailing skeptical members. Negotiations between the two parties were subsequently called off, after the results with the ÖVP were not sufficient. The Green youth organisation Grünalternative Jugend (Green Alternative Youth or GAJ) briefly occupied the rooms of the Green parliamentary club in the Austrian parliament building in protest.

In 2003 three Green federal counsellors formed their own club in the Upper House Federal Council (Bundesrat) of Parliament.

After the 2006 elections the Greens gained four seats and ended up with 21 seats and became the third largest party in Parliament, however did not have enough mandates to form a coalition government with either the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) or Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) and became the largest opposition party, while the SPÖ and ÖVP formed a grand coalition government.

The party suffered from internal struggles in 2017, losing its Youth wing (which split away and formed an ephemeral joint list with the Communist Party of Austria) and later experiencing a split of Peter Pilz's faction, forming the Peter Pilz List.

The 2017 legislative election saw a collapse for the party, scoring only 3.8% and losing its representation in the Nationalrat for the first time since 1986. Following the results, party spokesman Ingrid Felipe resigned from her post and was replaced by Werner Kogler.

The party saw a revival in the 2019 European election, in which they scored 14.1% and elected 2 MEPs. The election saw the collapse of JETZ.

The party eventually later this year, experienced a strong recovery and performed better well leading up to the 2019 snap legislative election, the Greens returned to the National Council (Nationalrat) with their best ever result in a legislative election, scoring 13.9% and electing 26 MPs, an upswing of 10.2% from 2017.

Chairpersons since 1986

The chart below shows a timeline of the Green chairpersons and the Chancellors of Austria. The left green bar shows all the chairpersons (Bundessprecher, abbreviated as "Chair.") of the Green party, and the right bar shows the corresponding make-up of the Austrian government at that time. The red (SPÖ), black (ÖVP), and light grey (Independent) colours correspond to which party led the federal government (Bundesregierung, abbreviated as "Govern."). The last names of the respective chancellors are shown, the Roman numeral stands for the cabinets.

Federal state level
The Green party also entered the parliaments or assemblies (Landtag) of Austrian federal states and communal governments. Following is an analysis of the party on the federal state (Länder) level:

Burgenland
The Burgenland Greens were able to take their seats in the federal state parliament (Landtag) for the first time in 2000. The party received 5.49% of the tally, which meant two mandates. In the federal state elections in 2005 these two seats were reaffirmed with 5.21% received of all votes cast.

Carinthia
In the southernmost federal state Carinthia, different Green parties ran state elections: the KEL/AL in 1984, Anderes Kärnten in 1989 and 1994, and Demokratie 99 in 1999. These parties were, however, never able to enter the federal state assembly, since the Carinthian voting system requires a party to win a direct mandate in one of the four regional election districts, which effectively means a 10%-threshold in order to enter.

Only in 2004 were the Carinthian Greens finally able to take their seats in the federal state assembly, where they are represented by cabaret artist Rolf Holub and Barbara Lesjak. On a regional level, for example in the federal state capital Klagenfurt, the Carinthian Greens have already played a political role for a longer time. In the Klagenfurt city council, the Greens are represented by Andrea Wulz, Matthias Koechl, Angelika Hoedl and Reinhold Gasper. Since the local election in 2003, the Klagenfurt Greens were able to take one of nine seats in the proportional city-government, Andrea Wulz is the town councillor for issues relating to women, family matters and social housing projects.

Lower Austria
In 1998 the Lower Austrian Greens were represented with two delegates in the federal state assembly. In the federal state elections in 2003 the Greens received 7.22% and thus won four mandates, which enabled them to form a parliamentary group - called club in Austrian politics - in the assembly. With Madeleine Petrovic, the Lower Austrian Greens have a former federal spokeswoman and one of the most outspoken animal activists of Austria as their leader (Klubobfrau). In 2005 the Lower Austrian Greens managed to win and take their seats in 100 municipal assemblies and as of 2005 had four vice-mayors. Their managing director in Lower Austria is Thomas Huber.

Salzburg
After the federal state elections in 1989 the Salzburg State Greens had two mandates in the Salzburg federal state assembly, in 1994 three and in 1999 again two. Under the leadership of Cyriak Schwaighofer the Greens performed under their expectations in the 2004 federal state elections and could not achieve the desired club status of at least three mandates. As voter-current analyses showed, the small increases in votes were largely due to former voters of the Liberal Forum (LiF), which did not run in the Salzburg elections. In March 2009 they were down from 8% to 7.3%, keeping their two seats in Salzburg State's parliament.

The Bürgerliste (Citizen List) is the common platform of the Greens in Salzburg municipality. Like many other autonomous municipal groups it carries its own name.

Styria
The Styrian Greens have three delegates sitting in the federal state assembly, federal state spokesperson Lambert Schönleitner, Sandra Krautwaschl, and Lara Köck. There are two independent Greens parties: on the one hand the federal state party, on the other hand there is the Die Grünen - Alternative Liste Graz party for the federal state capital Graz. In the Graz city-council the Greens are represented by Sigi Binder, Lisa Rücker, Hermann Candussi and Christina Jahn.

Styria has the largest Austrian Green youth organization in Austria, called Grüne Jugend Steiermark (Green Youth Styria). Beside the Green Youth Styria there also exists Austria's first Green students' organization, the ECO Students.

Tyrol
In Tyrol the Greens (official name: Die Grünen – die Grüne Alternative Tirol) were able to win seats and placed in 1994 Eva Lichtenberger as Austria's first Green state councillor in a local government, responsible for environmental affairs.

The 2003 Tyrolean Landtag (state assembly) elections were the best ever for the Austrian Greens, winning 15.59% of all votes cast. In the capital city of Innsbruck the Greens reached approximately 27% of the vote. The Tyrolean election result also meant that the Greens could for the first time in history nominate a member to the Upper House of Parliament. Since 2003 the Green delegate to the Federal Council (Bundesrat) of Parliament is Eva Konrad, former chairlady of the Austrian National Union of Students (Österreichische HochschülerInnenschaft) of the University of Innsbruck.

The communal elections of 2004 brought a doubling of the mandates for the Tyrolean Greens. City elections in Innsbruck in 2006 were a success for the Greens and they gained 8 of the 40 seats in the parliament of Innsbruck.

In the elections to the European parliament the Tyrolean Greens obtained 17.32%, their best result until then. Eva Lichtenberger subsequently changed her position to become a Member of the European Parliament (MEP). The results in Innsbruck were particularly good: there the Green party received 28.28%, which made it the strongest party, even before the Christian-democratic ÖVP and the social-democratic SPÖ. The Greens were able to score on a number of issues that they have been fighting for years. Besides the social topics above all the problems of transit traffic over the Alps was important.

The Tyrolean Greens have experts on traffic issues with MEP Eva Lichtenberger, the national speaker and club chairperson Georg Willi and the speaker of group of regional of Innsbruck Gerhard Fritz. The issue of transit traffic through the Tyrol is of great importance, because the state is troubled by the massive transit traffic between Germany and Italy over the Brenner Pass. Since the Tyrol sits right in between Germany and Italy, the bulk of the commercial traffic passes through there. This heavy-duty traffic has devastating effects on the fragile alpine environment and decreases the quality of life for the inhabitants. Since the entry to the European Union, Austria had to give up any quota limitations on how much international traffic coming from EU-countries is allowed to pass through its territory.

The Tyrolean Greens accused the federal government of not having pushed for a better deal with the European Union concerning transit-traffic and in effect abandoning the concerns of the citizens. They also heavily criticised the government's failure to negotiate a follow-up of the 1994 transit-treaty signed with the EU. Apart from the Greens, various anti-transit civic movements have formed to protest against the environmental damages caused by the traffic.

Sitting in the National Council is Kurt Grünewald, a Tyrolean member of parliament, as well as the former leader of the Greens Alexander Van der Bellen, who has Tyrolean roots (he spent a part of his youth there and went to high school in Innsbruck).

The results of the Tyrolean Landtag elections:

2003 delegates: Sepp Brugger, Maria Scheiber, Uschi Schwarzl, Elisabeth Wiesmüller und Georg Willi (club chairman);

1999 delegates: Maria Scheiber, Elisabeth Wiesmüller, Georg Willi (club chairman);

1994 delegates: Bernhard Ernst, Franz Klug, Max Schneider und Georg Willi (club chairman [Klubobmann]);

1989 delegates: Eva Lichtenberger, Jutta Seethaler, Franz Klug.

Upper Austria
In 1997 the Upper Austrian Greens successfully entered the Upper Austrian Landtag (state assembly) for the first time. After the state elections in 2003 (state elections in Upper Austria are held every six years, not five like in the other states), the Greens were able to win even more seats. The campaign was already aimed at gaining ministerial seats in the state government. Since the conservative Christian-democratic ÖVP was the strongest party, this would have meant for the Greens to enter into a coalition government with them (the so-called "Schwarz-Grün" [Black-Green] coalition, named after the party-colours). This new political constellation was quite controversial amongst party members on both sides. In the Green party, the leader Rudi Anschober was able to convince party members and after some dealing became state councillor for environmental affairs. The Greens of the state capital of Linz under the leadership of city councillor Jürgen Himmelbauer were most against this black-green project.

On the national level, the Upper Austrian Greens were able to nominate and send to the parliamentary Upper House Federal Council (Bundesrat) councillor Ruperta Lichtenecker.

Vorarlberg
The Vorarlberg Greens were the first to ever win mandates in an Austrian state assembly election. Already in 1984 they were able to win 13% of the votes in the Vorarlberg state assembly elections, which for that time was an absolute sensation. The charismatic alpine farmer Kaspanaze Simma from Bregenzerwald was the leading candidate, it was mainly due to his efforts why the party was so instantly successful. Because of their strength, the Greens were allowed to form their own parliamentary fraction (Klub), which caused some logistical problems as the newly constructed Landtag building in 1981 only provided space for the traditional three parties (ÖVP, SPÖ, FPÖ), not four. Since the traditional organic farming sector is important in the western Austrian regions, the Greens were able to gain support.

In the following years the Greens were able to consolidate their position by gaining seats on the communal and municipal level. Occasionally they lost their official club status in the state assembly, when they fared poorly from 1999 to 2004. In 2006 the speaker of the Vorarlberg Greens was Johannes Rauch.

The results of the Vorarlberg Landtag elections:

1 Combined result of ALÖ and VGÖ

Vienna
The Viennese Greens started nominating candidates in the Vienna Gemeinderat (municipal council or state assembly) in 1983 and were able to enter in 1991. Over the years they have been able to continually gather support. A lot of support has been coming from former Liberal Forum voters, after the liberals failed to enter any legislature. The traditional strongholds in Vienna for the Greens are the districts of Neubau (2005: 43.26%), Josefstadt (32.26%), Alsergrund (29.43%), Mariahilf (28.97%) and Wieden (25.14%).

In the 2001 Gemeinderat elections, the Greens were able to win the majority of a district for the first time. In the district of Neubau they won 32.55% and were able to nominate the Bezirksvorsteher (mayor of the district). The results of 2001 also allowed the Viennese Greens to nominate Stefan Schennach as federal councilor to the Upper House of Parliament (Bundesrat). But despite the strong gains, the Greens were not able to enter into a coalition government with the SPÖ, since the social-democrats were able to win an absolute majority.

The 2004 European Parliament election were the best for the Viennese Greens so far. From the total tally, they received 22%, which put them ahead of the Christian-democratic ÖVP and placed them on second position behind the SPÖ (37.7%). In Neubau the Greens received 41%. They were also able to win first place in the districts of Wieden, Mariahilf, Josefstadt and Alsergrund.

In the 2005 Gemeinderat elections, the Greens were able to win votes, but missed their target of becoming the second most powerful party and ended up on fourth place, right behind the right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ). Because of the different weighing by districts, the Greens received 14 mandates, one more than the FPÖ. They were also able to place another city-councillor. In the districts, the party was able to consolidate their holding on Neubau, as well as win the majority of votes in Josefstadt. With that, the Greens were able to nominate a second Green district-mayor. The second place was won in the districts of Leopoldstadt, Margareten, Mariahilf, Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus and Alsergrund.

The Green delegates to the Viennese Gemeinderat or Landtag as of 2006 were: Maria Vassilakou (club-chairlady [Klubobfrau]), Waltraut Antonov, Heidi Cammerlander, Christoph Chorherr, Sabine Gretner, Susanne Jerusalem, Alev Korun, Rüdiger Maresch, Martin Margulies, Sigrid Pilz, Ingrid Puller, Marie Ringler, Marco Schreuder, Claudia Sommer-Smolik. The two city-councillors are David Ellensohn and Monika Vana.

The 2010 results meant that the SPÖ was unable to hold the majority of seats in the Vienna city council and therefore had to rule together with the Greens performing for the first time as coalition partner. The current vice-governor/vice-mayor of Vienna as of 26 June 2019 is Birgit Hebein.

The results of the Viennese Gemeinderat elections: 1 ran as Alternative Liste Wien (ALW)

Organisation
In 2004 the Greens had about 3,000 members nationwide, although at present there are no uniform regulations for membership. Apart from the members, the Greens rely on a large number of volunteers. The party used to function on the principles of grassroots democracy (Basisdemokratie) and rotation principle (Rotationsprinzip), but this was stopped in the course of the time. The last basic-democratic element is the Urabstimmung, which is a vote on any issue that can be initiated with the petition of at least 100 members. As of 2003 however, no such vote has taken place.

The highest body is the Federal Congress (Bundeskongress), which convenes at least once a year. All federal state organisations send delegates, also the immigrants-organisation is allowed to send delegates as "the tenth Austrian state". The Federal Congress decides the electoral lists for the National Council elections and elections to the European parliament. The congress also elects the federal spokesperson (BundesprecherIn). The congress also decides the party program and sets the party guidelines.

In the last few years, the federal executive (Bundesvorstand) has developed into the actual decision-making centre. It meets at least once a week, mostly on Tuesdays, and determines the guidelines of daily politics. The federal executive also decides on party finances. The extended federal executive (Erweiterter Bundesvorstand) consists of a smaller number of delegates from each state and meets at least once a month. It takes care of the implementation of the party-guidelines, which were set by the party congress. It also chooses the representatives of the party spokesperson.

The highest office in the party is that of the federal spokesperson (Bundessprecher). The party's federal spokesman is Werner Kogler.

The federal state organisations (Landesorganisationen) are organised similarly: There are federal state meetings, which sometimes convene as a members meeting or a delegates meeting. Similar to the federal executive, there are federal state executives (Landesvorstände). The party charter also allows for each federal state group to hold a vote on basic issues as well that affect the whole party.

Independently in the National Council there also exists a Green National Council Club (faction), which can independently specify its guidelines. In recent years however an increasing fusion of the work between party and its club was noticeable. Michaela Sburny, successor of Franz Raft since June 2004 as the Greens' federal chairperson, was allowed to keep her National Council mandate. This means she is allowed to hold two offices at the same time, something that was frowned upon by the Greens previously.

There are different Green or Greenish organisations within the party and associated with it. These include:
 * The Grünen Andersrum is the gay-, lesbian and transgender organisation, which is organised differently from state to state, and exists in all states except Vorarlberg and Burgenland. In Vienna, the Grünen Andersrum are a part of the party itself.
 * The Grünen SeniorInnen (DGS) is the organisation for senior citizens. It was founded on March 9, 2001, in Vienna. The DGS fights for a policy more friendly to senior citizens and their right to lead an active, fulfilling and self-determined life.
 * The Initiative Grüne MigrantInnen (IGM) is the Green group for immigrants in Austria. Their demands are a facilitation of integration into life in Austria, equal rights and equal opportunities, fight against racism and other issues concerning migrants.
 * The Grüne und Alternative Studierende (GRAS) is a separate party which candidates in the elections for the Austrian National Union of Students (Österreichische HochschülerInnenschaft – ÖH). There they are the biggest faction, together with the Socialist Students of Austria (Verband Sozialistischer StudentInnen Österreichs – VSStÖ) they form the executive committee of the Austrian National Union for Students.
 * The Grünalternative Jugend (GAJ) is the youth organisation of the Green party. The GAJ existed since the 1990s. It is a member of the Federation of Young European Greens (FYEG). The GAJ sees itself rather as extreme left. The organisation is subdivided into smaller groups for each state.
 * The Grüne Frauenorganisation is the organisation for women. As of 2005, it does not exist yet in every state.
 * ECO Students is a Green student's organisation, which currently only exists in Styria.
 * The Grüne Wirtschaft is the Green economic organisation and runs in the elections for the Economic Parliament of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber (Wirtschaftskammer Österreich – WKÖ).
 * The Alternative und Unabhängige GewerkschafterInnen (AUGE/UG) is the Green labour union. It runs in the elections for the labour parliament of the Austrian Labour Chamber (Arbeiterkammer – AK).

The education and training of new Green politicians is done by the Grüne Bildungswerkstatt, which is an independent voluntary association. The Grüne Bildungswerkstatt is financed by the republic, as regulated by Austrian law for the equal treatment of all parliamentary parties.

President
In the 2016 Austrian presidential election, Alexander Van der Bellen won the election with 50.35% of the votes and defeated Norbert Hofer the Freedom Party of Austria politician who received 49.65% of the vote. Van der Bellen became the first president from the Greens. On 1 July, the Constitutional Court overturned the result of the election and ordered a re-run because of irregularities during the counting process. On 4 December 2016 Van der Bellen won the re-run of the second round with 53.79% of the votes to Hofer's 46.21%.

Prominent members
Among the most notable founding members and mentors are or were Professor Alexander Tollmann, the painter Friedensreich Hundertwasser, actor Herbert Fux, the mayor of Steyregg Josef Buchner (the first Green mayor in Austria – in 1987 excluded from the Green parliamentary club), Freda Meissner-Blau and Günther Nenning, with Nobel prize laureate Konrad Lorenz supporting the 1984 protests at Hainburg.

Today, Green politicians include (in alphabetical order)

 * Rudolf Anschober (State councillor of Upper Austria)
 * Thomas Blimlinger (Mayor of the Viennese district Neubau)
 * Dieter Brosz (former MP (former member of the lower house National Council), spokesman for education)
 * Christoph Chorherr (Member of the state assembly of Vienna)
 * Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek (former MP, former federal spokeswoman)
 * Werner Kogler (federal spokesperson)
 * Ulrike Lunacek (former MEP, former spokeswoman for foreign policy)
 * Karl Oellinger (former MP, deputy federal speaker)
 * Madeleine Petrovic (Club chairperson of the Lower Austrian Greens)
 * Johannes Rauch, (Club chairperson and state speaker for Vorarlberg)
 * Marie Ringler, (former Member of the Viennese state assembly, spokeswoman for culture and technology)
 * Michaela Sburny (former MP, Spokeswoman for the economy, former Federal Executive Manager of the party)
 * Terezija Stoisits (Ombudswoman, former MP and spokeswoman for minorities)
 * Ingrid Lechner Sonnek (Club chairperson of the Styrian Greens)
 * Alexander Van der Bellen (former Federal Speaker, club chairman in the National Council), President of Austria
 * Maria Vassilakou (Club chairperson of the Viennese Greens, Vice Mayor)
 * Georg Willi (Club chairperson and state speaker for the Tyrol)

Members of the European Parliament

 * Mercedes Echerer (MEP from 1999 to 2004)
 * Eva Lichtenberger (MEP since 2004, member of the Austrian national convention)
 * Johannes Voggenhuber (MEP from 1995 to 2009, Member of the European Convention, member of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union)
 * Ulrike Lunacek (2009–2017)

title: The Greens – The Green Alternative