Fascism’s New Faces (and New Facelessness) in the ‘post-fascist’ Epoch

Abstract

This article offers a synopsis of a theory of fascism's definitional core and its evolution in the 20th century that is fully consistent with the "new consensus" that has grown in Anglo-phone fascist studies. Among its main features are: 1. derivation of a methodological premise from Max Weber's theory of the "ideal type," which rejects Marxist, essentialist, or metapolitical notions of the "fascist minimum," 2. identification of this minimum in a core ideology of national rebirth (palingenesis) that embraces a vast range of highly diverse concrete historical permutations, and 3. while fully recognizing the singularity of Nazism, the application of this theory to the Third Reich categorizes it as an outstanding example of a fascist regime.