Fighting the Last War

Tamir Bar-On; Jeffrey M. Bale

doi:10.5771/9781793639387

Summary

The authors argue that the potential threat of a resurgence of "fascism" has been consistently exaggerated from 1945 until present day; that the ongoing lack of conceptual and definitional clarity with respect to terms like "fascism," the "radical right," the "alt right," "white supremacism," "populism," "racism," etc., has enabled ill-informed or dishonest commentators to distort their meaning and abusively misapply those labels so as to delegitimize their political opponents; and that the political and economic elites in charge of contemporary Western societies are now deliberately exaggerating and exploiting the threat posed by the domestic radical right in order to facilitate vilifying, harassing, de-platforming, censoring, "canceling," and repressing disgruntled citizens (no matter where they may lie along the political spectrum) who openly criticize and vigorously oppose their agendas. The authors also advocate the use of well-established scholarly methods for carrying out research on the right and provide precise definitions of various terms in order to facilitate the development of more accurate categorizations.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2022
ISBN-Print: 978-1-7936-3937-0
ISBN-Online: 978-1-7936-3938-7
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 438
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. Acknowledgments No access
3. 1. Unleashing another “Brown Scare” and Creating New “Folk Devils” No access
  2. Political Realities versus Conspiratorial Fantasies No access
  3. Notes No access
1. The Growing Problem of “Progressive” Political Hegemony and Activism in Academia No access
2. Idiosyncratic Personal Violence versus Ideologically Motivated Violence No access
3. Materialist Biases in “Social Science” Analysis in the Context of Extremism No access
4. The Nature and Function of Ideologies No access
5. The Common Characteristics of Extremist Political and Religious Ideologies No access
6. Distinctive Features of Religious Extremism No access
7. Notes No access
1. What do the Concepts “Radical Right” and “Fascism” Signify and Encompass? No access
2. What is the Radical Right? No access
3. What is Fascism?119 No access
4. Where are the Islamists in the Literature on the Radical Right? No access
5. Notes No access
1. Islam and Islamism No access
2. Ideological Currents and Subcurrents of Sunni and Shi‘i Islamism No access
3. Islamism as a Right-Wing Ideology No access
4. Divisions within the Jihadist Milieu No access
5. The “Fascist” Threat versus the Islamist Threat in the Context of Violence and Terrorism86 No access
6. Notes No access
1. “Fighting the Last War”? No access
2. Hyping “Fascists” and “Nazis” Decade after Decade No access
3. Trump as an “Authoritarian” or “Fascist” No access
4. Notes No access
1. A Checklist for doing Proper Scholarly Research No access
2. Improving Scholarly Research on the Radical Right No access
3. Suggestions for Properly Defining and Identifying Different Ideological Components of the Western Right No access
4. Some Key Causal Factors in the Emergence of a New Dissident and Radical Right No access
5. Final Thoughts No access
6. Notes No access
Afterword No access Pages 331 - 340
Bibliography No access Pages 341 - 430
Index No access Pages 431 - 436
About the Authors No access Pages 437 - 438