Global Populisms by Carlos de la Torre Treethep Srisa-nga

Author:Carlos de la Torre, Treethep Srisa-nga [Carlos de la Torre, Treethep Srisa-nga]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781000421392
Google: ung5EAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-09-08T01:00:44+00:00

Linkages

Charisma is a central linkage in populism and fascism. The sociologist Hans Gerth (1940, 418), for example, described Hitler’s personal charisma in the following terms:

he does not follow already existing rules; he creates new ones. He is a revolutionary who does not accept the existing order but sets up instead an order of his own. His authority is not a delegated authority but one residing in himself.

The Duce and the Führer were seen by followers and believed themselves to incarnate “the people’s will and to [be] the bearer of the people’s destiny” (Paxton 2005, 126). Their power was embodied “in a single, sacred, irreplaceable body, neither dynastic nor institutional, but precisely charismatic; a body identified with gestures, expressions, a voice; the mystical object around which the crowd can assemble and commune” (Traverso 2016, 97).

When fascism emerged in Italy and Germany, most political parties were made up of notables who only reached out to the public during election times. Another characteristic was that they were class parties. Fascists innovated by appealing to all social classes and were successful in their recruitment efforts, with the exception of workers who belonged to socialist parties, organizations, and subcultures. They engaged “committed militants rather than careerist politicians” (Paxton 2005, 58). Fascists mobilized “the masses, giving them the illusion of being actors, not simple spectators of politics” (Traverso 2019, 105).

A new type of party was created. The fascist militia party “operated in political struggles with warlike methods and considered political adversaries as ‘internal enemies’ that must be defeated and destroyed” (Gentile 2008, 292). It had an all-encompassing conception of politics that subordinated “privacy-based values (religion, culture, morality, love etc.) to the preeminent political power” (ibid., 297). Paramilitary violence was used to repress and terrorize socialists and Communists, to show the weakness of the state to maintain order, and the total commitment of the fascist militant. Paramilitarism socialized militants into a brotherhood, a comradeship of a “segregated, hardened elite, beyond conventional standards of behavior” (Mann 2004, 29). Before getting to power, the Blackshirts repressed the left and took over Italian cities that were in the hands of leftwing elected officials. The Nazis combined electoral and paramilitary violent tactics against selected enemies.

Parallel fascist structures and organizations such as foreign relations but specially the party police were created. After assuming power with the complicity of conservative elites, fascist parallel organizations encircled the state. In Italy, for example,

the local party chief flanked the appointed mayor, the regional party secretary flanked the prefect, the Fascist militia flanked the army and so on … After the Nazi Party attained power, the parallel organizations threatened to usurp the functions of the army, the Foreign office and other agencies.

(Paxton 2005, 124–125)

Duplication of lines of authority explains the chaotic and shapeless lines of authority in fascism, which was nonetheless concentrated in the leader as the center that mediated or provoked conflicts and divisions to reign supreme.

Fascists put most of their efforts into the creation of institutions to shape a new man and woman. The French

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