Are there still fascists in the 21st century? Six experts weigh up the evidence

Fascism is a word thrown around increasingly frequently in today’s politics, but how do contemporary far-right movements compare to the original fascism of the 20th century? Six historians consider the global parallels

A stylised illustration of a rally or public gathering. In the foreground, dark silhouettes of people hold up smartphones, their screens glowing as they record a central speaker on a stage. The speaker stands with a microphone, flanked by two figures in dark clothing and sunglasses. Behind them, a large blank flag is raised, and a dramatic red backdrop shows an enlarged shadow of the speaker, creating a sense of spectacle and media attention.

Published: August 17, 2026 at 4:00 PM

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“Post-fascism wishes to destroy democracy from within, not from outside”

Democracy took different forms throughout history; why not fascism? Its contemporary expression is undoubtedly dissimilar from its ancestors between the two world wars, but some basic features are easily detectable: a project of national ‘regeneration’, considering nation as a closed, homogeneous ethnic community; a radical nationalism taking a pronounced xenophobic and racist taste; and authoritarian tendencies that put into question democracy.

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Classical fascism was neither conservative nor merely reactionary: instead of looking to the past, it aimed to build a new world. Its charismatic leaders were demagogues, and it fused anti-Enlightenment culture with modernity and new forms of inequality (Social Darwinism, biological racism, imperialism).

A street protest where a group of people stand behind a large purple banner with bold white lettering stating an anti‑Islamist message and displaying the UKIP name. Several participants hold UKIP‑branded flags, and one person raises a wooden cross above the crowd. The demonstration takes place on a city street with buildings and trees visible in the background.

Nick Tenconi, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), at a rally in London in 2025 | Credit: Getty Images

Today, a new wave of authoritarian, far-right movements and governments is rising globally. Its leaders have abandoned any reference to fascism, but maybe we are facing a kind of ‘post-fascism’, a concept that refers to both a historical distance from classical fascism and a significant change to its ideological and political features. Unlike its ancestors, post-fascism accepts the institutional framework of liberal democracy; it wishes to destroy democracy from within, not from outside.

Other differences are significant. Except for a few elitist billionaires and technocrats, post-fascism does not possess any utopian vision. It defends many conservative values – traditions, family, national sovereignties – and wishes to restore a past golden age of greatness and prosperity. It does not pursue the myth of a ‘total state’ but claims the dismantlement of the state itself. Today, Islamophobia has replaced antisemitism as the dominant focus, and some far-right voices are enthusiastic supporters of Israel. What remains is demagoguery: the search for a scapegoat that depicts immigrants and refugees as intruders and a threat.

Democracy is not merely a procedural norm but a hard-won historical achievement, and antifascism is essential to preserving an emancipatory horizon in the century ahead. A ‘non-anti-fascist’ democracy would be fragile and vulnerable.

Enzo Traverso is the Susan and Barton Winokur professor in the Humanities at Cornell University

“Men today are vulnerable to the rhetoric and aesthetics of fascism”

Violent masculinity is making a global comeback. Some of the distorted ideas about manhood that underpinned 20th-century fascism are finding new expressions today, fuelled by the global polycrisis and rapid technological change.

Classical fascism promoted a version of manhood characterised by dominance, aggression and discipline. From Mussolini’s Italy to Hitler’s Germany, 20th-century fascism saw the glorification of the ‘strong man’ leader who built cults of personality, bolstered by a wider societal celebration of physical toughness. In the First World War’s aftermath, trauma, uncertainty and social change contributed to what many scholars described as a crisis of masculinity across Europe. Fascist leaders told their followers they had been mistreated and promised to restore their strength and pride.

There is a striking parallel with the victimhood narratives deployed by contemporary demagogues. Men today are similarly vulnerable to the rhetoric and aesthetics of fascism. What paramilitary and physical conditioning drills were for the Hitler Youth in the 1930s, hypermasculine fitness and combat subcultures have become for some of today’s extremist movements.

A stylised profile of a human head rendered in gold and deep brown tones, lit dramatically to emphasise sculptural contours. The background is filled with bold red, white, and black geometric shapes that create a striking, poster‑like composition.

A propaganda poster for the Hitler Youth, 1942. Julia Ebner sees parallels with the celebration of “hypermasculine fitness” seen in today’s extremist movements | Credit: Getty Images

The resurgence of centuries-old masculinity myths extends far beyond extremist circles. A new generation of boys and young men is drawn to the cult-like atmosphere of the Manosphere. We also witness a global return of political ‘strong man’ leaders who project violent ideals of masculinity and seek to reverse women’s rights.

Boys and men are again being told that they must be strong, wealthy and dominant to succeed in a zero-sum competition for status and recognition. Likewise, ‘looksmaxxing’ may be a new term, but its underlying philosophy is not: the belief that there is a single ideal male form.

One of the lessons from the 20th century is that the political theatre of ‘strong man’ leaders only works when there is a receptive audience. This is where the day-to-day youth trends in schools and online subcultures connect with geopolitics today.

Julia Ebner is leader of the Violent Extremism Lab at the University of Oxford and a postdoctoral researcher at Magdalen College

“Radical rightwing populists are worse than contemporary fascists”

In 1944 George Orwell wrote an article despairing of the way fascism had degenerated into a nebulous label. Eighty years on it is even more difficult to apply the word meaningfully. It is only since the 1990s that a working definition has gained scholarly consensus, not as a true definition but the most heuristically useful one to date.

This sees fascism as a radically anti-democratic and revolutionary force bent on bringing about the rebirth of the nation from perceived decadence through the mass mobilisation of all ‘true’ members of the regenerated national community. The shorthand for this theory of fascism as a revolutionary form of extreme illiberal nationalism is taken from one influential version of it, which I first published in 1991, namely that it is a ‘palingenetic’ form of populist ultranationalism. ‘Palingenetic’ means it is striving for rebirth; ‘nationalism’ locates it within secularising western states; the ‘ultra’ implies it strives to replace liberal democratic nationalism with a totalitarian new order; and ‘populist’ highlights the fact that a fascist state is different from a purely Orwellian one based on repression.

A group of people stand together on a stage, waving multiple French flags. At the front, two individuals are prominent—one in a dark blue jacket, the other in a black suit and tie. Behind them, several participants in blue shirts and white caps raise flags against a pale blue backdrop, creating the impression of a coordinated public or political event centred on national symbolism.

Jordan Bardella, president of the French nationalist, right-wing National Rally, pictured in Paris in 2024 with that party’s former president Marine Le Pen | Credit: Getty Images

Applied today, this definition suggests there is no fascist regime anywhere in the world: Putin’s state is a repressive autocracy which demobilises the people; Xi Jinping’s China is de facto ultranationalist but theoretically a communist state which also demobilises its subjects; the Ayatollah state is a theocracy; Modi, Trump and Netanyahu are sowing social conflict, and have been accused of crimes against humanity, but are doing so as democratically elected leaders.

They thus pose existential threats to liberal democracy, but they do so as embodiments of radical rightwing populism (RRWP) who are actively de-liberalising their democracies from within. They are not fascists, but worse. They may not sound as dangerous to humanity as ‘fascists’, but their state forms of RRWP represent a far greater threat today to both humanity and the ecosystem than contemporary fascism, which is now a toxic trickle compared with the raging torrent of the 1930s.

Roger Griffin is professor emeritus at Oxford Brookes University and author of The Nature of Fascism (The Pinter Press, 1991)

“Some female leaders present feminism as a threat to the nation”

The Sección Femenina, the Women’s Section of the Falange, shows that women’s political participation has not always been tied to emancipatory projects. Founded in 1934 as part of the Spanish fascist party, it became responsible for teaching women what it regarded as appropriate to their sex: to be wives, mothers, housewives and servants of the nation.

The distinctive feature of the Women’s Section was that this mission was carried out by a public, disciplined and politically influential female elite, whose lives did not conform to the domestic ideal they prescribed for other women. They held office, travelled, spoke in public and negotiated spaces of power within the regime. To make such authority acceptable, they looked to historical figures. The 15th and 16th-century Spanish queen Isabella I of Castile was the most effective of these, as she could be presented as Catholic, a wife and mother, and bound to the destiny of the nation.

A black‑and‑white photograph of women standing behind a long counter, handing out loaves of bread to a crowd. Several children and adults reach forward to receive food. The scene takes place outdoors in front of a building, giving the impression of organised relief or ration distribution during a period of hardship.

Members of the Sección Femenina, the Women’s Section of Spain’s fascist party, distribute food in Barcelona in 1939. “Women’s political participation has not always been tied to emancipatory projects,” says Begoña Barrera López | Credit: AKG

The comparison with Spain’s far right today needs to be made carefully. Vox, the leading far-right party, operates in a democracy and has no organisation comparable to the Sección Femenina. Yet comparison raises the question of what happens when women give public authority to anti-feminist arguments? In Vox, some female leaders and spokeswomen present feminism as a threat to women, the family, men and the nation. It is no coincidence that the party has recently returned to Isabella I of Castile as a female model.

This combination of Spanish nationalism and maternalist language also appears in the discourse of some women on the contemporary far right, who present women as guardians of society against currents they describe as harmful or alien to the nation, including feminism, socialism and non-Christian faiths. Women’s public presence in the far right has helped, and continues to help, present anti-feminism as a defence of women, rather than as a reaction against them. As both historical fascism and the contemporary far right show, the projects most hostile to feminism need women capable of giving them authority, respectability and legitimacy.

Begoña Barrera López is a professor in contemporary history at the University of Seville

“In interwar Estonia, the radical right approached the ‘race’ question with caution”

Thinking through a racial lens appealed to the ultranationalist sensibility. Racial theories could justify beliefs in the nation’s superiority or distinctiveness as a biological reality. This could be protected, improved or regenerated through eugenic interventions such as bans on racial mixing.

In interwar Estonia, however, the radical right approached the ‘race’ question with ambivalence and caution. Historically, Estonians occupied a lower rank on a racial hierarchy, and western racial theorists categorised Finno-Ugric speakers, such as Finns and Estonians, as ‘Asiatic’ races.

Aware of the disadvantages, the Estonian radical right criticised German claims of racial purity and superiority, while its dominant force, the Vaps movement, dismissed race as irrelevant. Instead, it argued that the spirit of the War of Independence (1918–20) was what really unified the nation, accepted Baltic German veterans of the War of Independence into their ranks and actively courted ethnic Russian voters.

An illustration of four people in traditional clothing. Two stand at the centre wearing richly embroidered garments and ornate headpieces, one holding a basket. Beside them, a seated figure with a long beard wears simpler attire. Another person stands to the side in patterned clothing. Their varied costumes and accessories suggest a historical or regional cultural setting.

Traditional costumes worn by people of the Volga Finn, Mari and Estonian cultures in the 19th century. Some far-right intellectuals have highlighted what they see as Estonians’ racial ties with Scandinavians | Credit: Getty Images

Meanwhile, elitist radical right fringe groups explored ways to change the Estonian narratives of race. Intellectuals emphasised historical ties with Scandinavia and highlighted what were considered signs of the Nordic racial elements in Estonians. Eugenicists warned against mixed marriages to protect Estonian biological distinctiveness.

Unlike their northern neighbour, the far right in interwar Latvia experienced fewer constraints rooted in assumptions of racial inferiority; western racial theorists often classified Latvians as ‘Nordic’ or near-Nordic. In the 1930s, the ultranationalist Thunder Cross readily associated ancient Baltic tribes with Aryan racial imagery.

Nowadays, the Estonian far right rally support by anti-immigration rhetoric that portrays non-white populations as threats to Europe. The Russian minority, formerly considered exclusively as threats, is now being approached as a potential electorate with shared conservative values and a white racial identity. The interwar Estonian radical right’s ambivalence about race was based on what is now a historical curiosity no longer relevant for the contemporary far right or their transnational allies.

Paris Pin-Yu Chen is a research fellow at the University of Birmingham

“Hindu nationalism was and is no copycat fascism. Its ideology is homegrown”

Indian critics have long considered Hindu nationalism to be ‘fascist’, though scholars of the traditional varieties of fascism may not agree. In the Indian case as elsewhere, the ‘f-word’ is used for its polemical punch, but the charge also carries a deeper historical weight. Hindu nationalists and European fascists were keenly aware of each other’s projects in the interwar years, exchanging ideas and seeking ties. Nevertheless, Hindu nationalism was and is no copycat fascism; its ideology, and the immense violence it produces, are homegrown, even as they are deeply contextualised in the global fascist moment of the interwar period and its echoes in our own time.

Hindutva, as Hindu nationalism’s core ideology is called, was first formulated by Vinayak Savarkar in 1923, then updated by Deendayal Upadhyaya, chief ideologue of the BJS, the precursor of India’s current ruling party, the BJP. Its distinguishing feature is its brand of violence, which functions through absorption. Savarkar sought to eradicate Muslims through the reproductive incorporation of Muslim women into the Hindu ‘race’. He produced, from what other racisms called ‘miscegenation’, a robust ideology of race in India.

A nighttime outdoor gathering where a large crowd sits or stands behind wooden or bamboo barriers. Numerous bright orange flags with green edging rise above them on tall poles, creating a vivid contrast against the dark sky. Buildings and trees in the background are lit by artificial lights, giving the scene the atmosphere of an organised rally or public event.

Flags fly for the BJP and Shiv Sena parties at a rally in 2009. “Hindu nationalists and European fascists were keenly aware of each other’s projects in the interwar years,” writes Luna Sabastian

Under Upadhyaya’s aegis, in 1965, Hindutva was reformulated as Integral Humanism and absorption elevated to a theology. India’s essence was declared to be integrality, or monism, dismissing difference as illusion and rendering the existence of the other as separate from the Hindu self theologically impossible. No future for Muslims in India other than complete erasure can be imagined here.

We know about the exclusion of ‘the other’. Yet violence that functions through the inclusion – as absorption – of ‘the other’ can be just as catastrophic. Hindutva is widely held to be a form of fascism – one that transcends the mere adaptation of European ideas and teaches us about fascism elsewhere. Racism built on miscegenation might at first appear to be different from Nazi racism, yet it resonates with Nazi Germanisation in the occupied east and whitening campaigns in settler colonial contexts. In this way, Indian thought holds universal lessons.

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Luna Sabastian is author of Fascism in India: Race, Caste, and Hindutva (Harvard, 2025)

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