Fascism as a Political Limit: The Political Implications of Fascism Debates

Across academia, there are a plethora of debates about the "fascism" of certain regimes/movements. I analyzed three such "fascism debates" in Austria, Spain, and Ukraine, concluding that they revolve around the contesting or creating of "political limits." Political limits are social (and sometimes legal) boundaries on political beliefs and behaviors. When violated, effective political limits can proscribe certain individuals and practices. When seen from the perspective of political limits, fascism debates reveal themselves to be starkly divided into two camps. "Exclusivist" scholars argue that we should not call the regime/movement in question "fascist." They believe the political limit imposed by "fascism" to be inappropriate, because they do not usually regard fascism as a threat in the present. "Inclusivist" scholars argue that we should call the regime/movement in question "fascist." They endorse the political limits imposed by "fascism" and wish to strengthen them, because they believe fascism might appear anytime and anywhere. While I sympathize with the inclusivist urge to root out and prevent recurrences of fascism's misdeeds, it is unclear that "fascism" is the best place to look in the present. By restricting our search for danger to interwar nationalism, we may be blinding ourselves to more pressing concerns.