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Roger Griffin argues that fascism should be defined as “a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism” (1991: 26). Fascism, he argues, aims to rejuvenate, revitalise and reconstruct the nation following a period of perceived decadence, crisis and/or decline. Griffin uses the Victorian term ‘palingenesis’, meaning ‘rebirth from the ashes’, to characterise this central motivating spirit (Geist) of fascism, though it is only when combined with the other elements in the noun phrase, that his fascist minimum is given a sense of ideological form. Thus, in response to criticisms that ‘national rebirth’ is not a uniquely fascist ideological commitment, Griffin argues: “I agree entirely […] It is only when the two terms are combined (‘palingenetic ultra-nationalism’) that they form a compound definitional component” (Griffin 2006b: 263–4). Detailing his noun phrase a little more, he uses

‘populist’ not to refer to a particular historical experience […] but as a generic term for political forces which, even if led by small elite cadres or self-appointed ‘vanguards’, in practice or in principle (and not merely for show) depend on ‘people power’ as the basis of their legitimacy. I am using ‘ultra-nationalism’ […] to refer to forms of nationalism which ‘go beyond’, and hence reject, anything compatible with liberal institutions or with the tradition of Enlightenment humanism which underpins them” (Griffin, 1991: 36–7).

Since 1998 Griffin (c.f. 2006a, 2006b, 2007: 179–183) has argued that a ‘new consensus’ has developed in Anglophone fascist studies around the utility and application of his definition. Like him, this ‘new consensus’ “rejects Marxist, essentialist or metapolitical notions of the ‘fascist minimum’ [and] identifies this minimum in a core ideology of national rebirth (palingenesis) that embraces a vast range of highly diverse concrete historical permutations” (Griffin 2006a: 29). His own heuristic definition has shifted, slightly, since its first iteration (for an interview discussing this, see Griffin 2008). In Modernism and Fascism, for example, he wrote:

FASCISM is a revolutionary species of political modernism originating in the early twentieth century whose mission is to combat the allegedly degenerative forces of contemporary history (decadence) by bringing about an alternative modernity and temporality (a ‘new order’ and a ‘new era’) based on the rebirth, or palingenesis, of the nation. Fascists conceive the nation as an organism shaped by historic, cultural, and in some cases, ethnic and hereditary factors, a mythic construct incompatible with liberal, conservative, and communist theories of society. (Griffin 2007: 181)

For theorists who work within this approach, fascist ideas are revolutionary, not reactionary; modern, not conservative; and ‘positive’, in the sense that they envision and are directed towards utopian ideals, rather than a range of fascist negations (such as the anti-communism, anti-liberalism and anti-conservatism of Nolte’s (1968) minimum). That said, Griffin has also argued: although “the rampant eclecticism of fascism makes generalizations about its specific ideological contents hazardous, the general tenor of all [fascist] permutations places it in the tradition of the late nineteenth-century revolt against liberalism” (Griffin 1993, reprinted in Griffin 1998: 37). Thus, despite his stated reservations regarding Nolte’s definition, he regards anti-liberalism, or (with a nod to fascism’s “futural dynamic”) “post-liberalism”, to be a necessary feature of a fascist ideological programme.

Griffin’s heuristic definition approaches fascism primarily as a set of ideological myths expounded by its leaders. As he has argued: “The premise of this approach [the ‘new consensus’…] is to take fascist ideology at its face value, and to recognize the central role played in it by the myth of national rebirth to be brought about by a finding a ‘Third Way’ between liberalism/capitalism and communism/socialism” (Griffin 1998: 238). That is, Griffin and similarly idealist historians form their conclusions regarding the ideological content of fascism on the basis of discourse produced by fascists themselves. Griffin (1993, reprinted in Griffin 1998: 38) maintains that fascists have “produced relatively elaborate theories on such themes as the organic concept of the state, the leader principle, economics, corporatism, aesthetics, law, education, technology, race, history, morality and the role of the church.” These theories, he argues, should be the main foci of analysis, preceding analysis of specific movements and contexts.

My approach taken in this book overlaps, to a degree, with that proposed by Griffin; the exact manner of this overlap I will detail later on in this chapter. However, it also differs in several significant ways, which position my analysis squarely outside of the ‘new consensus’. For example, take Griffin’s definition of populism, quoted above: “a generic term for political forces which […] depend on ‘people power’ as the basis of their legitimacy” (Griffin 1991: 36–7). This may be a necessary aspect of any definition of populism, but it is insufficient to account for the particular form of populism orchestrated within fascist movements. At a bare minimum, we need to make a distinction between right wing populism and left wing populism (see Wodak et al 2013). De Grand (2006: 218) offers this useful distinction between the two:

Left-wing populism has traditionally blamed economic elites for many of its grievances and has supported labour unions, the right to strike and egalitarian values, whereas right-wing populism has traditionally railed against the evil influence of Marxists, liberals, Jews, Blacks or immigrants, and, rather than attacking upper class material interests, has [de facto or de jure] defended them by opposing labour unions and labour strikes and by channelling social anger towards racial or ethnic ‘inferiors’.

Looking at De Grand’s two broad-brush descriptions, it is immediately apparent that fascism—as ideology, political programme and regime—fits squarely with the second: fascism is not simply populist, but right-wing populist. Fascism’s populist agenda does not depend simply on ‘people power’, but on channelling anger towards ‘parasitic’ and/or ‘contaminating’ Outgroups. Within left-wing populism, the working class are (rhetorically) united against political-economic elites; within right-wing populism the working class are divided, and an unpatriotic and/or internationalist political-economic elite is blamed for the existence of the portion of the population deemed ‘undesirable’. Left-wing populism orientates towards egalitarian principles; right-wing populism orientates towards chauvinism—inclusion for Us, exclusion (at best) for Them. The distinction is stark, and needs to be made patently clear in any heuristic account.

I will now outline three further key points of divergence before introducing my discourse analytic approach in more detail. The following sections draw heavily on the debates published in Griffin et al (2006).