Understanding and Countering Fascist Movements: From Void to Hope

This book emphasizes the importance of understanding fascism as a social movement seeking power,connected to sources of power,and addressing cognitive and emotional needs. It rejects centrist paradigms and argues that fascism can only be defeated by countervailing social movements that offer alternative spaces of belonging,community care,and meaning.

Format: Hardback
Length: 144 pages
Publication date: 22 December 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Understanding fascism is crucial for defeating it. This book, Understanding and Countering Fascist Movements, suggests that fascism must be understood according to two "dimensions." Firstly, fascism is a social movement seeking power, always already connected to sources of power. Hence, fascism cannot be defeated by policing it as a crime problem or therapeutically treating it as a pathology of mental health. Secondly, fascists have cognitive and emotional needs they are seeking to fulfill through their participation in the movement, but the presence of these motivations must be held in tension with the fact that fascists are responsible for their choices and that these individual motivations also exist in a wider social context of capitalism and systems of supremacy.

The book opens by examining some psychological elements of recruitment and disengagement from fascist movements, before addressing broader social narratives, concluding with the limitations of an approach that is grounded in the national security state that relies on individualized, perpetrator-centered interventions. Rejecting centrist paradigms that see fascism as "extremism" or "accelerationism," Braune argues that fascism must be addressed in its specificity and uniqueness as an ideology and movement. Ultimately, she argues, fascism can only be defeated by countervailing social movements that not only demand radical social change but offer alternative spaces of belonging, community care, and the search for meaning.

Understanding and Countering Fascist Movements is a philosophical contribution to antifascist theory and practice that will be appreciated by academics, students, and activists concerned about fascism today.

Weight: 450g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367468699