Fascism and dictatorship

pp. 229-262

in: Bob Jessop, Nicos Poulantzas, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1985

Abstract

Poulantzas deserves to be better known for his analyses of fascism and military dictatorship. His theoretical and political development can only really be understood by examining how it was influenced by the historical example of fascism and the contemporary reality of military dictatorship. Unfortunately his reputation as a structuralist theoretician has hindered recognition of the direct relationship between his concern with concrete historical analysis and his interest in problems of political strategy. Indeed his contributions to historical debate are generally discussed as examples of "applied structuralism" rather than instances of strategically-oriented political enquiries. Thus it is worth "bending the stick in the other direction" by considering Poulantzas's accounts of exceptional states in terms of their strategic interest rather than as examples of history for history's sake. We discuss fascism in the present chapter and military dictatorships in Chapter 9.