The Nature of Fascism

Griffin defines fascism as 'a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultranationalism.' The key move is defining fascism by a positive ideological axiom—the myth of national rebirth—rather than by what it opposes. Griffin explicitly rejects definitions built on negations like anti-liberalism or anti-Marxism, arguing these are 'misleading and not useful' because every political movement negates specific positions from its own standpoint. The definition locates fascism's driving force in a utopian myth of a regenerated national community rising from a decadent society.

Palingenesis is Greek for 'rebirth' or 'regeneration.' Griffin uses it to capture the fascist vision of a radical national new beginning after a period of perceived decline or crisis. The concept draws on Sorel's notion of the political myth—an inspiring, revolutionary image that mobilizes followers regardless of its rational feasibility. Griffin argues this myth supplies fascism's affective power and distinguishes it from other revolutionary ideologies: where socialism specifies a future socioeconomic order, fascism's utopia remains deliberately vague, focused on the act of renewal itself. The 'new man' is a common sub-myth within this framework.

Griffin focuses on fascism as ideology—a patterned structure of political thought centered on the rebirth myth. Paxton focuses on fascism as behavior, tracing what fascists actually did through five stages from movement to regime. Griffin's method is morphological: he identifies fascism's ideological core and traces permutations across different national contexts. Paxton's method is processual: he asks how fascism develops and what conditions enable its success. Griffin provides the definition; Paxton provides the trajectory. The two approaches are complementary rather than competing, though they disagree about whether ideology or action should anchor the analysis.

The book is often read as claiming fascism is essentially a backward-looking, restorative movement. Griffin explicitly rejects this. Palingenesis is not nostalgia for a golden age; it is a forward-looking, revolutionary project to create a qualitatively new order, an 'alternative modernity.' Fascism rejects contemporary liberalism and socialism not to return to a pre-modern past but to inaugurate a different future. This is why Griffin places fascism among modernist movements: it shares modernism's drive to transcend a disenchanted present, even as it rejects liberal modernity's values. The myth is revolutionary, not reactionary.

The Nature of Fascism began as Griffin's doctoral thesis, written in Oxford in 1991 and first published by Pinter that year. Griffin was convinced that in the turbulent ideological climate of the late twentieth century, a clearer understanding of fascism's ideological dynamics could contribute to comprehension of the phenomenon. The book was widely praised by scholars including Ian Kershaw, George Mosse, and Stanley Payne. It is now recognized as a foundational text of the 'new consensus' in fascist studies, which shifted scholarly focus toward fascism's revolutionary ideological core and its relationship to modernity.

Griffin's ideal type is deliberately anti-essentialist, allowing comparative analysis across contexts. He treats fascism as a genus with national permutations, not a fixed essence. The book examines abortive fascist movements in interwar Europe and extends the analysis to non-European and postwar cases. However, Griffin distinguishes fascism from the populist radical right: the latter seeks to de-liberalize the existing system from within, while genuinely fascist movements maintain an anti-systemic, revolutionary intent to destroy and replace the existing order. This taxonomic distinction remains central to debates about contemporary far-right politics.