INTRODUCTION: THE RISE OF STRONG NATION-STATES

To explain fascism we must place it in its context. For three decades it was just one variant of a broader political ideal: “authoritarian nation-statism.” In turn, this was just one version of the dominant political ideal of modernity, the strong nation-state. But fascism dominated only in Europe, where it was set inside a single large geographical bloc of authoritarian regimes. Since Europe elsewhere remained liberal democratic, there were “two Europes.” The period of fascism's explosive growth was also rent by economic, military, political, and ideological crises. So this chapter discusses the rise of nation-states across the map of Europe, amid four social crises.

State strength has two dimensions, infrastructural and despotic (see Mann 1988). Infrastructural power indicates the capacity of the state to enforce rules and laws by effective infrastructures covering its territories and peoples. An infrastructurally strong state may be democratic or authoritarian. The democratic United States has more infrastructural state power than did the authoritarian Soviet Union. This type of power is power “through” people, not power “over” them. But despotic power refers to the ability of state elites to take their own decisions “over” their subjects/citizens. Virtually all modern states have come to possess greater infrastructural powers than their historical predecessors, while some have also wielded formidable despotic powers. The combination of a substantial amount of both powers is distinctive to authoritarian states of the twentieth century, which I am here seeking to explain. How did the combination arise?