FASCISM AND POLITICAL THEORY [Critical perspectives on fascist ideology]
This study is intended as a critical introduction to the origins and development of fascist ideology, and will be of interest to students and researchers working in the fields of politics, history and historical sociology. The aim is to consolidate students’ theoretical understanding, and to help students acquire the interdisciplinary skills necessary to understand the concrete social, economic and political conditions which generate and sustain fascism. The text also offers students a critical resource to challenge revisionist approaches in fascist studies. In too many standard texts, a programmatic or essentialist reading of fascist ideology as a ‘secular religion’ is taken for granted, while researchers remain preoccupied with the search for an elusive ‘fascist minimum’. The emphasis on formal ideology in contemporary historiography has increased our awareness of the complexity and eclectic nature of fascist ideologies which challenge liberalism and social democracy; but many outstanding questions remain, including the relationship between fascism and modernism, the structural and ideological links between fascism and capitalism, the origins of fascist violence, and the link between fascism and masculinity.
The text begins with a critical overview of the debate on fascism, before turning to the core substantive themes in the discussion of fascism and poli tical theory. Chapter 2 examines ideological positions in the debate on fascism, rationality and modernity, looking at the work of key fascist intellectuals. The aim is to locate fascism within the ideological spectrum by examining its philosophical sources and cultural dynamics, to demarcate fascism from liberalism, conservatism and socialism, and to assess the economic and cultural significance of fascist modernism. Chapter 3 examines the central problem of the relation between fascism and social structure, asking whether support for fascist movements is linked to class or whether fascism can be explained as a pathology of industrial modernity, while Chapter 4 examines the relationship between fascism and the state, focusing on the tension between ideological hegemony and political sovereignty, and the exceptional nature of ‘totalitarian’ rule. This theme is continued in the discussion of violence in Chapter 5: fascism is often associated with the glorification of ‘creative violence’ for its own sake, in contrast with expansionist nationalism, although the similarities between fascist militarism and colonial subjugation suggest that fascism grew out of European civilization rather than in opposition to it. In Chapter 6, the emphasis turns to the political economy of fascism, which is analysed as a radical example of postliberal capitalism. The central feature of fascist political economy lies not simply in the turn towards economic nationalism, but in the corporatization of political power. This can be contrasted with non-totalitarian forms of postliberal capitalism, which share a common emphasis on protectionism and state regulation as solutions to the crisis of liberalism. The question of nationalism is investigated in greater detail in Chapter 7 in an attempt to explain the importance of the nation form in fascist ideology. The origins of fascist nationalism are complex and in some respects contradictory, but it is clear that attempts to define fascism as the logical outcome of primordial attachments are unhelpful as they fail to grasp the point that nationalism functions by connecting identity and power under changing historical conditions: in an important sense, nationhood is the outcome of economic and demographic changes which create and reproduce identity through the rationalization of commonalities functional for the group in question. In this sense, fascism can be understood as a type of ‘internal colonialism’ in which human life itself becomes the concern of the state, a theme continued in Chapter 8 on the question of race, where attention is paid to the causal links between fascism, imperialism and ‘scientific’ racism. This is followed in Chapter 9 by a detailed analysis of the role of gender and sexuality in fascist ideology, focusing on the glorification of virility and reproductive power in the fascist race-nation, and the controversial issue of fascism and homosexuality. [DOWNLOAD BOOK]
The text begins with a critical overview of the debate on fascism, before turning to the core substantive themes in the discussion of fascism and poli tical theory. Chapter 2 examines ideological positions in the debate on fascism, rationality and modernity, looking at the work of key fascist intellectuals. The aim is to locate fascism within the ideological spectrum by examining its philosophical sources and cultural dynamics, to demarcate fascism from liberalism, conservatism and socialism, and to assess the economic and cultural significance of fascist modernism. Chapter 3 examines the central problem of the relation between fascism and social structure, asking whether support for fascist movements is linked to class or whether fascism can be explained as a pathology of industrial modernity, while Chapter 4 examines the relationship between fascism and the state, focusing on the tension between ideological hegemony and political sovereignty, and the exceptional nature of ‘totalitarian’ rule. This theme is continued in the discussion of violence in Chapter 5: fascism is often associated with the glorification of ‘creative violence’ for its own sake, in contrast with expansionist nationalism, although the similarities between fascist militarism and colonial subjugation suggest that fascism grew out of European civilization rather than in opposition to it. In Chapter 6, the emphasis turns to the political economy of fascism, which is analysed as a radical example of postliberal capitalism. The central feature of fascist political economy lies not simply in the turn towards economic nationalism, but in the corporatization of political power. This can be contrasted with non-totalitarian forms of postliberal capitalism, which share a common emphasis on protectionism and state regulation as solutions to the crisis of liberalism. The question of nationalism is investigated in greater detail in Chapter 7 in an attempt to explain the importance of the nation form in fascist ideology. The origins of fascist nationalism are complex and in some respects contradictory, but it is clear that attempts to define fascism as the logical outcome of primordial attachments are unhelpful as they fail to grasp the point that nationalism functions by connecting identity and power under changing historical conditions: in an important sense, nationhood is the outcome of economic and demographic changes which create and reproduce identity through the rationalization of commonalities functional for the group in question. In this sense, fascism can be understood as a type of ‘internal colonialism’ in which human life itself becomes the concern of the state, a theme continued in Chapter 8 on the question of race, where attention is paid to the causal links between fascism, imperialism and ‘scientific’ racism. This is followed in Chapter 9 by a detailed analysis of the role of gender and sexuality in fascist ideology, focusing on the glorification of virility and reproductive power in the fascist race-nation, and the controversial issue of fascism and homosexuality. [DOWNLOAD BOOK]
