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“fascism: A right-wing nationalist ideology or movement with a totalitarian and hierarchical structure that is fundamentally opposed to democracy and liberalism. In ancient Rome, the authority of the state was symbolized by the fasces, a bundle of rods bound together (signifying popular unity) with a protruding axe-head (denoting leadership). As such, it was appropriated by Mussolini to label the movement he led to power in Italy in 1922, but was subsequently generalized to cover a whole range of movements during the inter-war period. These include the National Socialists in Germany, as well as others such as Action Francaise, the Arrow Cross in Hungary, or the Falangists in Spain. In the post-war period, the term has been used, often prefixed by “neo,” to describe what are successors to these movements, as well as Peronism and, most recently, some movements in ex-Communist countries, such as Pamyat in Russia (see extreme-right parties). Given such diversity, does the term have any meaning?

Genuinely fascist ideologies are: monist, that is to say, based upon fundamental and basic truths about humanity and the environment which to not admit to question; simplistic, in the sense of ascribing complex phenomena to single causes and advancing single remedies; fundamentalist, that is, involving a division the world into “good” and “bad” with nothing in between; and conspiratorial, that is, predicated on the existence of a secret world-wide conspiracy by a hostile group seeking to manipulate the masses to achieve and or maintain a dominant position.

In content, these ideologies are distinguished by five main components. (1) Extreme nationalism, the belief that there is a clearly defined nation which has its own distinctive characteristics, culture, and interests, and which is superior to others. (2) An assertion of national decline—that at some point in the mythical past the nation was great, with harmonious social and political relationships, and dominant over others, and that subsequently it has disintegrated, become internally fractious and divided, and subordinate to lesser nations. (3) This process of national decline is often linked to a diminution of the racial purity of the nation. In some movements the nation is regarded as co-extensive with the race (the nation race), while in others, hierarchies of race are defined generically with nations located within them (the race nation); in virtually all cases, the view is taken that the introduction of impurities has weakened the nation and been responsible for its plight. (4) The blame for national decline and/or racial miscegenation is laid at the door of a conspiracy on the part of other nations/races seen as competing in a desperate struggle for dominance. (5) In that struggle, both capitalism and its political form, liberal democracy, are seen as mere divisive devices designed to fragment the nation and subordinate if further in the world order.

With regard to prescriptive content, the first priority is the reconstitution of the nation as an entity by restoring its purity. The second is to restore national dominance by reorganizing the polity, the economy, and society. Means to this end include variously: (1) the institution of an authoritarian  and antiliberal state dominated by a single party; (2) total control by the latter over political aggregation, communication, and socialization: (3) direction by the state of labor and consumption to create a productionist and self-sufficient economy; and (4) a charismatic leader embodying the “real” interests of the nation and energizing the masses. With these priorities fulfilled, the nation would then be in a position to recapture its dominance, if necessary by military means.

Such priorities were explicit in the inter-war fascist movements, which engaged in racial/ethnic “cleansing,” establishing totalitarian political systems, productionist economies, and dictatorships, and of course went to war in pursuit of international dominance. But such parties can no longer openly espouse these extremes, and national/racial purity now takes the form of opposition to continuing immigration and demands for repatriation; totalitarianism and dictatorship have been replaced by lesser demands for a significant strengthening in the authority of the state, allegedly within a democratic framework; productionism has become interventionism; and military glory has been largely eschewed.”

Excerpted from: McLean, Iain, and Alistair McMillan, editors. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.