Assault on Democracy
Communism, Fascism, and Authoritarianism During the Interwar Years

Why did democratization suffer reversal during the interwar years, while fascism and authoritarianism spread across many European countries?

Kurt Weyland (Author)

9781108844338, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 February 2021

360 pages
23.5 x 16 x 3 cm, 0.74 kg

'… unique and interesting. The scope and ambition of this book are impressive …' Jeffrey Kopstein, Political Science Quarterly

The interwar years saw the greatest reversal of political liberalization and democratization in modern history. Why and how did dictatorship proliferate throughout Europe and Latin America in the 1920s and 1930s? Blending perspectives from history, comparative politics, and cognitive psychology, Kurt Weyland argues that the Russian Revolution sparked powerful elite groupings that, fearing communism, aimed to suppress imitation attempts inspired by Lenin's success. Fears of Communism fueled doubts about the defensive capacity of liberal democracy, strengthened the ideological right, and prompted the rise of fascism in many countries. Yet, as fascist movements spread, their extremity and violence also sparked conservative backlash that often blocked their seizure of power. Weyland teases out the differences across countries, tracing how the resulting conflicts led to the imposition of fascist totalitarianism in Italy and Germany and the installation of conservative authoritarianism in Eastern and Southern Europe and Latin America.

1. Introduction
2. Theory: the double deterrent effect and the bounds of rationality
3. The soviet precedent and the wave of isomorphic emulation efforts
4. The suppression of isomorphic emulation efforts and its limited regime effects
5. Persistence of the communist threat and rising appeal of fascism
6. The German exception: emulating full-scale fascism
7. The spread of fascist movements – yet of authoritarian regimes
8. Conservative-fascist relations and the autocratic reverse wave
9. The edges of the autocratic wave: battered democracy and populist authoritarianism
10. Conclusion
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: EU & European institutions [JPSN2], Comparative politics [JPB], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD]