Roger Griffin

Palingenesis means rebirth—the idea that a nation must be regenerated from a state of decay. Griffin combined this with ultranationalism to argue that fascism's core is a mythic call for national resurrection, not a fixed set of policies. A movement qualifies as fascist if it mobilizes around this rebirth narrative, regardless of whether it emphasizes race, culture, or state power. This definition lets scholars compare movements as different as Italian Fascism and Romanian Iron Guard without reducing them to a checklist.

Marxist theorists typically treat fascism as a tool of capitalism—a violent defense of ruling-class interests against socialism. Griffin rejects this as too narrow. He argues fascism is a revolutionary ideology with its own internal logic, one that genuinely seeks to destroy the existing order and replace it with a new nation. Marxist definitions struggle to explain why fascists often attacked capitalists and conservatives; Griffin's framework takes fascists' own claims of radical transformation seriously.

This is the central claim of his 2007 book Modernism and Fascism. The conventional view held that fascists were reactionaries longing for a pre-modern past. Griffin argued the opposite: fascism rejected liberal modernity's perceived chaos and decadence, but it did so in the name of an alternative modernity. Fascists wanted to harness technology, mass mobilization, and cultural revolution to create a new society. Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany were not attempts to restore feudalism—they were attempts to build a different kind of modern state.

His method of 'methodological empathy'—taking fascists' own ideological claims seriously rather than treating them as mere rationalizations—unsettles scholars who prefer structural or materialist explanations. Some worry this approach risks legitimizing fascist self-descriptions. Griffin has consistently replied that understanding an ideology is not the same as endorsing it, and that dismissing fascist ideas as cynical propaganda fails to explain why so many people believed them and acted on them.

Griffin has been careful to distinguish fascism from other forms of illiberal politics. He argues that Trump, Orbán, and Putin represent a process of 'de-liberalization' or 'Orbánization' of democracy—authoritarian nationalism that works within existing systems—rather than genuine fascism. True fascism, in his framework, requires a revolutionary project to overthrow the system and rebuild the nation through a myth of rebirth. He has criticized loose use of the label, noting it blurs important distinctions.

Griffin spent most of his career at Oxford Brookes University, where he was Professor of Modern History. He received an honorary doctorate from KU Leuven in 2011 for his contributions to comparative fascist studies. He has also been involved in founding the open-access journal Fascism and the International Association for the Comparative Study of Fascism (COMFAS). His academic background includes a First in French and German Literature from Oxford University and a PhD completed in 1990.