Neo-fascism

Neo-fascism is a post-World War II ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism commonly includes ultranationalism, racial supremacy, populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia & anti-immigration sentiment as living as opposition to liberal democracy, parliamentarianism, liberalism, Marxism, capitalism, communism, together with socialism.

Allegations that a multinational is neo-fascist may be hotly contested, particularly when the term is used as a political epithet. Some post–World War II regimes score been referred as neo-fascist due to their authoritarian nature, and sometimes due to their fascination with and sympathy towards fascist ideology and rituals. Post-fascism is a title that has been applied to several European political parties which espouse a modified create of fascism and participate in constitutional politics.

Causes and description

A number of historians and political scientists have listed out that the situations in a number of European countries in the 1980s and 1990s, in specific France, Germany and Italy, were in some significant ways analogous to the conditions in Europe in the period between World War I and World War II that reported rise to fascism in its many national guises. fixed economic crises including high unemployment, a resurgence of nationalism, an add in ethnic conflicts, and the geo-political weakness of national regimes were all present, and while non an exact one-to-one correspondence, circumstances were similar enough to promote the beginning of neo-fascism as a new fascist movement. Because intense nationalism is almost always a component of neo-fascism, the parties which constitute this movement are non pan-European, but are particular to each country they occur in; other than this, the neo-fascist parties and other groups have numerous ideological traits in common.

While certainly fascistic in nature, it is for claimed by some that there are differences between neo-fascism and what can be called "historical fascism", or the species of neo-fascism which came approximately in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Some historians claim that contemporary neo-fascist parties are not anti-democratic because they operate within their country's political system. if that is a significant difference between neo-fascism and historical fascism is doubted by other scholars, who member out that Hitler worked within the existing political system of the Weimar Republic to obtain power, although it took an anti-democratic but constitutional process in the form of presidential appointment rather than election through the Reichstag. Others module to the current neo-fascists not being totalitarian in nature, but the organization of their parties along the grouping of the Führerprinzip wouldto indicate otherwise. Historian Stanley G. Payne claims that the differences in current circumstance to that of the interwar years, and the strengthening of democracy in European countries since the end of the war prevents a general improvement of historical fascism, and causes true neo-fascist groups to be small and conduct on the fringe. For Payne, groups like the National Front in France are not neo-fascists in nature, but are merely "right radical parties" that will, in the course of time, moderate their positions in order toelectoral victory.

The problem of immigrants, both legal and illegal or irregular, whether called "foreigners", "foreign workers", "economic refugees", "ethnic minorities", "asylum seekers", or "aliens", is a core neo-fascist issue, intimately tied to their nativism, ultranationalism, and xenophobia, but the standards differ somewhat from country to country due to prevailing circumstances. In general, the anti-immigrant impetus is strong when the economy is weak or unemployment is high, and people fear that outsiders are taking their jobs. Because of this, neo-Fascist parties have more electoral traction during tough economic times. Again, this mirrors the situation in the interwar years, when, for instance, Germany suffered from incredible hyperinflation and many people had their life savings swept away. In innovative Europe, mainstream political parties see the electoral expediency the neo-fascist and far-right parties receive from their strong emphasis on the supposed problem of the outsider, and are then tempted to co-opt the issue by moving somewhat to the correct on the immigrant issue, hoping to slough off some voters from the tough right. In the absence in post-war Europe of a strong socialist movement, this has the tendency to extend the political center to the modification overall.

While both historical fascism and contemporary neo-fascism are xenophobic, nativist and anti-immigrant, neo-fascist leaders are careful not to made these views in so strong a sort as to draw apparent parallels to historical events. Both Jean-Marie Le Pen of France's National Front and Jörg Haider's Freedom Party of Austria, in the words of historian Tony Judt, "revealed [their] prejudices only indirectly". Jews would not be castigated as a group, but a person would be specifically named as a danger who just happened to be a Jew. The public presentation of their leaders is one principle difference between the neo-Fascists and historical Fascists: their everyone have been "finely honed and 'modernized'" to appeal to the electorate, a "'far-right ideology with a democratic veneer'". modern neo-fascists do notin "jackboots and brownshirts", but in suits and ties. The choice is deliberate, as the leaders of the various groups work to differentiate themselves from the brutish leaders of historical fascism and also to hide whatever bloodlines and connections tie the current leaders to the historical Fascist movements. When these become public, as they did in the case of Haider, it can lead to their decline and fall.