Davies Peter - The Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right

The Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right is designed as a reference source and guide for all those with an interest in the phenomenon of fascism and far-right politics. Given a pervasive, and in some respects, unhealthy preoccupation with the Second World War and fascism among some sections of the general public, the popular literature on the topic is vast and slightly unhelpful. However, there is also a renewed interest in the serious academic study of fascism and the far right, fuelled by the persistence of extremist ideology in a post-Cold War world in which ideology was meant to wither away. The 1990s witnessed the revived visibility of ethno-nationalism and associated genocidal violence (e.g. in Bosnia or Rwanda); the influence of former neo-fascists in the Italian Alleanza Nazionale (AN); the prominence of the Front National (FN) in France, the Freiheitliche Partei sterreichs (FP) in Austria, the National Demokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) in Germany, and groups like Pamyat in Russia. These trends go beyond Europe: we could include the rise of Hindu nationalism in India, as reflected in the ascendancy of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or the prominence of some of the more violent and conspiratorial militia groups in the US. At an instinctive level, all of these are called far right, just as fascism is; and yet there is unease about linking them all to Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini. An accurate understanding of these phenomena requires careful study and some effort at dispassionate analysis.

The first problem to be encountered by any observer is that of a definition, or, seen another way, that of too many definitions, not merely of the far right but of fascism itself. A more precise purpose of the Companion, therefore, is to help readers understand the location of fascism and the far right on the political landscape, and the boundaries between them and other movements of thought in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. To this end, readers will find material on rightist parties or personalities that are/were close to fascism, as well as those that are commonly juxtaposed with it.

The Companion will provoke readers into asking questions about the nature of these ideologies, as well as providing some answers. One question may already have crossed their minds: why not confine the book to fascism? The most obvious reply is that fascism is seen as a quintessential movement of the far right. It is also evident that some concerns emphasised by fascists were or Ambiguities and paradoxes such as these abound and cannot be dismissed as merely academic preoccupations. They are critical to an understanding of the role of fascism and the far right in modern history and politics, even in the post-Cold War world, and, we hope, are already among the concerns of the curious and inquisitive reader of a book like this one.