What is it about?
Modern society is still haunted by the catastrophic episodes of inhumanity unleashed by fascism in the Second World War. This article is an attempt to exorcise the fixation with fascism so that academics, journalists, politicians and the general public can understand the relationship of modern right-wing phenomena to interwar regimes more clearly and evaluate new threats to democracy from racism, nationalism, and radical religion more precisely.
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Why is it important?
The term fascism is freely bandied around in the media and social media, and sometimes by academics operating outside their specialist comfort zone. To be able to understand and combat the anti-liberal right it is important to be able to distinguish between fascism, right-wing populism, illiberal democracy, and political religion, but also to spot some of the carefully concealed variants of fascism that have spring up since 1945.
Perspectives
I have spent nearly 4 decades trying to promote clarity in the academic understanding and definition of fascism and have to see ever more numerous examples of its misuse and abuse in every area of society as liberal democracy is increasingly eroded from within or attacked from without. So this article is "personal".
Roger Griffin
Oxford Brookes University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Ghostbusting Fascism?, Fascism, May 2022, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/22116257-bja10041.
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