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The Search for Neofascism: The Use and Abuse of Social Science
A study of the informal logic that has governed the half-century of academic writing devoted to what has been generally identified as 'neofascism', together with a careful assessment of those political movements and regimes considered the proper objects of inquiry. The intent of the study is both pedagogical and cautionary. Its central thesis of the work is that terms like 'fascism', 'generic fascism', and 'neofascism' are often used with considerable indifference, applied uniquely to political movements and regimes considered on the 'right' rather than the 'left', intended more often to denigrate rather than inform. The result has been confusion. Within that context some of the most important political movements of our time are considered, including, among others, the Alleanza Nazionale of Italy and the Bharatiya Janata Party of India, both of which have discharged leadership roles in their respective governments: identifying either as 'neofascism' has clear implications for international relations.
320 pages, Paperback
First published March 27, 2006
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About the author
A. James Gregor
43 books40 followersAnthony James Gregor (April 2, 1929 – August 30, 2019) was a Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, well known for his research on fascism, Marxism, and national security.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 15, 2014
Excellent, could not put it down. A. James Gregor clearly distinguishes between genuinely fascist/neo fascist movements and mainstream right wing parties. He points out how the study around neo fascism has been largely disappointing as scholars are quick to ascribe the fascist label to anything remotely nationalistic, extremist or violent when in fact neo-fascism is a cognitive distinction with peculiar and distinguishable characteristics.
June 21, 2023
This is a hard book to rate, because it veers from terrible to brilliant in so many ways. Gregor is an old-school political scientist, taking on a “consensus” view of fascism from a frankly iconoclastic perspective, and for someone who has studied (and largely accepted) that view, this is challenging material. That means that in reading it I was often reading “against the grain;” hyper-aware of Gregor’s faults and failings, and disputing his perspective, but I have to admit he made me question some assumptions, which is after all the reason to read nonfiction in the first place. Let’s say it’s a hard read, but not entirely an unrewarding one.
Gregor’s major argument is that the concepts of neofascism and its necessary attendant of “generic” fascism are over-applied by left-leaning intellectuals who see fascist boogeymen everywhere – except in the genuinely totalitarian, murderous regimes derived from Marxist-Leninist revolutions. He argues that Italian Fascism should not be understood as a “rightist” revolution, and while he may be in the minority by saying so, he is on firm intellectual history ground as he points out that Mussolini had been a leading Marxist writer and publisher prior to his conversion to Fascism, and that the syndicalism that he incorporated into its theory was derived from leftist organizational theory as well. He is in a slightly larger minority when he claims that National Socialism should not be mistaken for a “permutation” of fascism – the good company he can claim here includes Israeli scholar Zeev Sternhell, one of the major writers about French fascist theory, and Stanley Payne, whose work on Spanish fascism is unequalled. Gregor doesn’t even go quite so far as they – implying that National Socialism is a sort of degenerated or mis-applied fascism in the “wrong” circumstances.
Gregor has been developing his idea of the “right” circumstances for the development of fascism at least since the 1970s, when he wrote “Interpretations of Fascism” (reviewed separately). For him, fascism is a developmental stage for backward economies needing to perform rapid industrialization in order to join the privileged circle of “developed” nations. It does this by mobilizing nationalism and national myths to drive labor and investment to work together for the benefit of the nation without concern for individual interests. It consolidates political and cultural power in a single party, with a single leader, to make rapid decision-making and action possible, and suppresses any divisive elements, such as those advocating “class warfare” that could undermine the project of national vitalization. Italian Fascism, for all of its errors (especially siding with Germany in World War II), succeeded in its project of turning a poorly-organized agrarian nation into a real industrial and military power in the early twentieth century.
With this definition firmly established, one can easily see why Gregor rejects such groupings as Alleanza Nationale in Italy or the Frente National in France from the neofascist pantheon. These countries are not in need of development in the manner which Gregor uses to mean “fascism.” Nor do Nazi skinheads, Christian Identity churches, or populist tax resistors qualify. He takes some time to look at certain suspects, some of them expected – Julius Evola, for example, and the aforementioned Alleanza – and moving toward the less obvious – Marcus Garvey (who praised Mussolini in his day), the Nation of Islam, and the Hindu Nationalist BJP – one at a time finding that, despite certain surface-level similarities, none really qualifies as neofascist by his definition. Given that this book came out only five years after 9-11, he also dedicates a chapter to debunking the concept of “Islamofascism,” though that seems largely superfluous now. Where he finally does locate conditions that meet his requirements is probably the most anomalous of the cases he examines; specifically in post-Maoist China.
In some respects, Gregor is renovating an old concept here: that it would be more useful to examine “totalitarian” regimes as a group, rather than isolating some as fascist, or right-wing, and others as Marxist, or left-wing. He may have a point. Certainly both tendencies have implemented genocide of innocent groups in the process of stimulating powerful in-group identity and out-group rejection. But when he accuses other scholars of fascism of claiming that “only” right wing groups can commit mass murder, he is being unfair. No one I have read has ever made that claim, and in other places he seems to deliberately ignore the rigor of their approaches to defining fascism as a generic phenomenon and claims that they have fallen victim to Allied propaganda from World War II and Marxist theories of late-stage capital which are equally inaccurate claims. He ignores that these same scholars also came of age with the legacy of Cold War anti-Communism in their background, and yet they seem to have risen above that propaganda while being brainwashed by earlier material.
Still, Gregor remains a useful corrective for those who insist on using the “f-word” as a way of insulting anyone whose politics they disagree with and insisting that some kind of analytical usefulness be applied to terminology in political science. I doubt anyone but Gregor agrees with all of his conclusions, but the road he takes to reach them is worth consideration.
Gregor’s major argument is that the concepts of neofascism and its necessary attendant of “generic” fascism are over-applied by left-leaning intellectuals who see fascist boogeymen everywhere – except in the genuinely totalitarian, murderous regimes derived from Marxist-Leninist revolutions. He argues that Italian Fascism should not be understood as a “rightist” revolution, and while he may be in the minority by saying so, he is on firm intellectual history ground as he points out that Mussolini had been a leading Marxist writer and publisher prior to his conversion to Fascism, and that the syndicalism that he incorporated into its theory was derived from leftist organizational theory as well. He is in a slightly larger minority when he claims that National Socialism should not be mistaken for a “permutation” of fascism – the good company he can claim here includes Israeli scholar Zeev Sternhell, one of the major writers about French fascist theory, and Stanley Payne, whose work on Spanish fascism is unequalled. Gregor doesn’t even go quite so far as they – implying that National Socialism is a sort of degenerated or mis-applied fascism in the “wrong” circumstances.
Gregor has been developing his idea of the “right” circumstances for the development of fascism at least since the 1970s, when he wrote “Interpretations of Fascism” (reviewed separately). For him, fascism is a developmental stage for backward economies needing to perform rapid industrialization in order to join the privileged circle of “developed” nations. It does this by mobilizing nationalism and national myths to drive labor and investment to work together for the benefit of the nation without concern for individual interests. It consolidates political and cultural power in a single party, with a single leader, to make rapid decision-making and action possible, and suppresses any divisive elements, such as those advocating “class warfare” that could undermine the project of national vitalization. Italian Fascism, for all of its errors (especially siding with Germany in World War II), succeeded in its project of turning a poorly-organized agrarian nation into a real industrial and military power in the early twentieth century.
With this definition firmly established, one can easily see why Gregor rejects such groupings as Alleanza Nationale in Italy or the Frente National in France from the neofascist pantheon. These countries are not in need of development in the manner which Gregor uses to mean “fascism.” Nor do Nazi skinheads, Christian Identity churches, or populist tax resistors qualify. He takes some time to look at certain suspects, some of them expected – Julius Evola, for example, and the aforementioned Alleanza – and moving toward the less obvious – Marcus Garvey (who praised Mussolini in his day), the Nation of Islam, and the Hindu Nationalist BJP – one at a time finding that, despite certain surface-level similarities, none really qualifies as neofascist by his definition. Given that this book came out only five years after 9-11, he also dedicates a chapter to debunking the concept of “Islamofascism,” though that seems largely superfluous now. Where he finally does locate conditions that meet his requirements is probably the most anomalous of the cases he examines; specifically in post-Maoist China.
In some respects, Gregor is renovating an old concept here: that it would be more useful to examine “totalitarian” regimes as a group, rather than isolating some as fascist, or right-wing, and others as Marxist, or left-wing. He may have a point. Certainly both tendencies have implemented genocide of innocent groups in the process of stimulating powerful in-group identity and out-group rejection. But when he accuses other scholars of fascism of claiming that “only” right wing groups can commit mass murder, he is being unfair. No one I have read has ever made that claim, and in other places he seems to deliberately ignore the rigor of their approaches to defining fascism as a generic phenomenon and claims that they have fallen victim to Allied propaganda from World War II and Marxist theories of late-stage capital which are equally inaccurate claims. He ignores that these same scholars also came of age with the legacy of Cold War anti-Communism in their background, and yet they seem to have risen above that propaganda while being brainwashed by earlier material.
Still, Gregor remains a useful corrective for those who insist on using the “f-word” as a way of insulting anyone whose politics they disagree with and insisting that some kind of analytical usefulness be applied to terminology in political science. I doubt anyone but Gregor agrees with all of his conclusions, but the road he takes to reach them is worth consideration.
December 22, 2009
Though this book contains the usual perversities one has come to expect from Gregor (e.g., the claim that the Salò Republic was populated by as many anti-fascists as fanatics [!:]; or that some of the movements he covers are not neofascist..., largely because they resemble National Socialism; or that the race-lunacy of Julius Evola contains "precious little" that resembles National Socialism, mainly because his racism was more theosophical than biological [!!:] -- the book for all that contains a set of brilliant analyses of some stunningly bizarre and well-known movements. And there is none of the ranting turgidity (or not much, anyway) that is found in his Place in the Sun. I have read the chapters on Italian Fascism, which is excellent; on Evola; on Marcus Garvey --; there are also chapters, which I haven't yet read, on the occult racism of NOI's E.M.; on Hindu fascism; and on Post-Maoist China. Much of his analysis is sound - it is jargon-free - and replete historical quotations. This is a valuable addition to the topic.
While ignored by mainstream American political discourse - which thinks that the world revolves around the twin poles of two center-right bourgeoise parties -- you can mark my words that fascism, under diverse masks and modes, will rear its head again many times throughout the 21st century -- and will once again deceive the multitudes about its true intentions and orientations. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
Though himself a fascist, Gregor is to be thanked for the analytical clarity he has brought in a long career to this much misunderstood and essential topic.
While ignored by mainstream American political discourse - which thinks that the world revolves around the twin poles of two center-right bourgeoise parties -- you can mark my words that fascism, under diverse masks and modes, will rear its head again many times throughout the 21st century -- and will once again deceive the multitudes about its true intentions and orientations. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
Though himself a fascist, Gregor is to be thanked for the analytical clarity he has brought in a long career to this much misunderstood and essential topic.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews