[Fascism: What It Is and Why We Need to Talk About it in Global Perspective

For the past ten years, we have witnessed in East and Southeast Asia not only an erosion of democracy, or “democratic backsliding”, but also the unleashing of spectacular political violence, sometimes going hand in hand with mass mobilisations directed against marginalised groups, the autonomisation of the executive and the weaponisation of the judiciary. How can these developments be understood? What theories of fascism or fascisation are available to us? In the theories of the 1930s and the post-war period, fascism was often seen as a catastrophic singular event, unexpected in its force and violence, sweeping across the countries of Europe like natural disaster. Yet even then, these theories of fascism were challenged by academics and activists who, viewing the situation from the Global South, understood fascism in the centres as a symptom of a colonial world order founded on violence and dehumanisation. This lecture explores how we can interpret and analyse these global manifestations today, and what conclusions we must draw from them for our political action.

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