Uploaded November 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Historian Robert Paxton argues that fascism is best understood, not as a coherent political ideology, by rather as a series of political and social techniques for exploiting weaknesses in existing political power structures and subverting them to acquire and wield political power. Fascist movements go through 5 stages of development, which outlines, the tracing of which is more helpful in understanding fascism than the search for any 'fascist minimum.'
Read the essay here: http://w3.salemstate.edu/~cmauriello/pdfEuropean/Paxton_Five%20Stages%20of%20Fascism.pdf
Historian Robert Paxton argues that fascism is best understood, not as a coherent political ideology, by rather as a series of political and social techniques for exploiting weaknesses in existing political power structures and subverting them to acquire and wield political power. Fascist movements go through 5 stages of development, which outlines, the tracing of which is more helpful in understanding fascism than the search for any 'fascist minimum.'
Read the essay here: http://w3.salemstate.edu/~cmauriello/pdfEuropean/Paxton_Five%20Stages%20of%20Fascism.pdf
