Over time, his political stance evolved: while initially a strong supporter of the Austria–Hungary and the Habsburg dynasty, after World War I, he adopted a conciliatory approach toward socialists and democracy to prevent the establishment of a left-wing dictatorship.

In 1922, he managed to end severe inflation through an international stabilization loan, although this meant subjecting state economic policy to the supervision of the League of Nations.

Considered brilliant and the most capable conservative politician of his time, Seipel shared with his socialist rival, Otto Bauer, a firm commitment to defending their principles.

In his later years, Seipel supported constitutional reforms to establish an authoritarian government and worked closely with fascist groups like the Heimwehr (Home Guard), an organization similar to the German Freikorps.

In the book he viewed the state – the self-governing political entity – as the primary justification of sovereignty, rather than the nation – a group that shares a common culture, as for example speakers of German.

At the beginning of November 1918, Seipel handed over his official duties to the government of Karl Renner of the Social Democratic Party of Austria.

[4] At the same time, Seipel supported the development of militant right-wing groups in Vienna, as seen above all in the fact that beginning in March 1920 he was a board member of the secret Association for Order and Law (Vereinigung für Ordnung und Recht).

[4] In September 1920, in a speech that was clearly tinged with anti-Semitism, Seipel called for a numerus clausus – an enrollment limit – for Jews at higher-level schools, colleges, and universities "according to population".

He focused on the right-wing Front Fighters Union of German Austria under the anti-Semite Hermann Hiltl, which he also helped re-arm with financial resources from the Hungarian Horthy regime.

[4] Seipel reorganized state finances with the aid of a League of Nations loan which was obtained when Austria officially renounced annexation to Germany.

In order to fight the hyperinflation of the krone currency, the government prepared for the introduction of the schilling on 1 March 1925 and re-founded Austria's central bank, the Österreichische Nationalbank, with the task of securing monetary stability.

[6][7] After fierce criticism from his own party and an assassination attempt on 1 June 1924, he resigned on 8 November 1924 but remained chairman of the Christian Socialist Deputies' Association.

The would-be assassin, Karl Jaworek (or Jawurek),[8] blamed Seipel for his poverty and shot the Chancellor at close range on the platform of a Vienna train station.

[9] Theodor Körner, a retired general and successful Social Democratic candidate for parliament in 1924, paid tribute to Seipel during the election campaign.

He united the CS with the Greater German People's Party, the Landbund (Rural Federation), and the National Socialist "Riehl and Schulz Group" to form an anti-Marxist front (the "Citizens' Bloc").

After the National Assembly election of 1927 in which Seipel's bloc won the majority of seats, there was a more rapid growth in the fundamental attitude that opposed Austrian democracy.

With the help of Austrian industrialists, Chancellor Seipel strengthened the role of the increasingly anti-democratic Heimwehr and remained its most influential advocate until his death.

[13][14] Under the political slogan of "true democracy", he proposed a cleansing of the system from the "evil of party rule": I myself do not attach too much importance to the mere reform of the electoral law and procedures; I see the root of the evil in the kind of party rule which developed in the times of constitutional monarchy and which has shot up unchecked after the removal of the correction that the monarchy provided.

In my view, the one who saves democracy is the one who purifies it from party rule and thereby restores it again.In 1930 Seipel was briefly Austrian foreign minister in the cabinet of Carl Vaugoin.

[15] Seipel had seen in the Jews a class that represented mobile large capital and a "certain kind of merchant mentality" by which the people felt threatened in their economic existence.

[citation needed] In December 1930 he went to Merano for a cure, where he received a telegram from Pope Pius XI wishing him a speedy recovery so that he could "return to his so meritorious activity".

So to the great enemy we also send three salvos over the bier.Since Seipel was regarded by the Social Democrats as the epitome of reaction and of the alliance between clericalism and capitalism, the article was received with incomprehension by the party base.

On 27 April 1934 the dictatorial city administration renamed the Ring of November 12, a part of Vienna's Ringstrasse commemorating the founding of the Republic, to the Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Ring in the section in front of the Parliament building.