The Galactic Empire - fascist, or 'merely' authoritarian?

Reposted from here.


Robert O. Paxton, in his excellent study The Anatomy of Fascism, holds that there are three primary characteristics unique to a fascist form of government (i.e. National Socialist Germany under Hitler and Fascist Italy under Mussolini) that differentiate it from a run-of-the-mill paternalistic despotism (such as Portugal under António de Oliveira Salazar):

1. The first, and most obvious, is the lack of a Party to compete with the civilian bureaucracy or civil service in a generic dictatorship. In both Nazi Germany and Italy under Mussolini the bureaucracy was stymied by the existence of similar services under the direct control of Party leadership. This often caused the system to bloat. The lack of the total dominance of a single party in Franco's Spain (the falangistas existed, but after Franco's rise to power were marginalized in favor of the existing social system), for instance, leads Paxton to consider 'Fascist Portugal' a sort of aborted fascist state.

2. A radicalization of the fascist movement - fascism, like Communism, is very much a revolutionary movement in that it relies upon a glorification of physical violence and hierarchical social systems in extremis to keep itself alive. These radical strains of fascism often appear during the birth and the collapse of such a movement, and 'traditional' authoritarians - such as the aforementioned Salazar, a quiet scholar who wanted nothing to do with the fascist extremists in his nation - tend to shy away from this. Fascisms tend to be vitalistic; dictatorships merely stodgily conservative.

3. The existence of a broad support base made up from members of all classes. While traditional tyrannies tend to be established by members of one class (such as the military in the instance of a junta), fascist societies are often established with the support of members of all walks of life. The industrial proletariat and the factory-owner might throw in for the same fascist party, for two highly different reasons: the former out of enthusiasm for its anti-bourgeois rhetoric, the latter out of an illusion that fascism is a mere reactionary form of conservatism.

Taking these three differences into account, I think any attempt to call the Galactic Empire a 'fascist' state is misbegotten. Other than COMPNOR, which seems merely to be a sort of political think-tank, there is no official 'Imperial' party, and while Palpatine certainly prompted his underlings to compete with each other for attention he never seems to have established a Party-based rival to the civilian government in place since the days of the Galactic Republic. Further, there is no evidence of any sort of radicalization, and Palpatine's rise to power differs from the real-life ascensions of Hitler and Mussolini in that, while the real-world nations were fully aware of the party platforms of the fascists, Palpatine gave no hint of his ambitions. The only similarity between the Galactic Empire and a fascist state is that both the fictional Empire and real-life fascist governments were established during periods of tremendous political turmoil and social upheaval, while most dictatorships are generally created during periods of stagnation.

The Italian fascist movement began as a perverse form of anarcho-syndicalism. Fascism's roots lie in revolutionary political theory, while 'mere' authoritarian dictatorships are much more banal. I do not feel either is an appropriate description of the Galactic Empire.

 

Actually, Palpatine's rise is meant to mirror Chancellor Adolf Hitlers. While people have stated, correctly, that Palpatine gets his inspiration not only from Hitler but also Augustus Caesar and several other real world dictators (including unpopular democratically elected officials Richard Nixon and recently, George W. Bush), Hitler remains Palpatine's chief influence. Well, Hitler and also Sauron.



Honestly, part of the issue is there's no political party system in the Old Republic. There's Imperial supporters in the New Republic but one has to question if there's anything resembling a formalized Imperial party.

Strangely, The New Order seems to have all the trappings of a political party without actually having an organized body underneath it. COMPNOR is a secret police/paramilitary organization akin to the Schutzstaffel with ISB being a lift from the early Soviet Union's NKVD. However, they also handle the issue of motivating Imperial citizens and propaganda that normally falls under a political parties' auspices. Hell, the Palpatine Youth of the Sub-Adult Group of COMPNOR is something everyone should be disquieted about.

Given the Senate was a powerless body, one has to wonder if there WAS an Imperial Party but because ANH begins with the dissolution of the Senate it is a case where the opposition was either forced to be publicly loyal or castrated early. It might be that an Imperial party exists but its really irrelevant to most Star Wars stories given that the Empire has absolute authority and characters either belong to it by default or recognize that civilian reform is pointless.

Clearly, Palpatine's rise in the Star Wars movies is a purely political act. He shuffles the legal system like a deck of cards. However, the depiction in the EU is a much more radical social reform movement. Palpatine is, off-screen, in the EU canon rallying a large number of humans to his side in order to make his transformation of the galaxy into an accepted one with High Human Culture and the New Order.

[image=http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f350/Willowhugger/Star%20Wars%20RPG/fic-sw1.gif]

 

I only found planetary versions.

 

Interesting question, I'd tend to say largely authoritarian. Just b/c Palpatine's rise to power is a fictional retelling of Adolf Hitler's doesn't mean his state is automatically Hitler's state. A lot also depends on how you treat Palpatine's speciesism or preference for humans. Fascism in real life was tied heavily to nationalist-racial ideologies, which certainly parallels Palpatine's anti-alien policies. However, for the most part the Empire's prejudice seems to have been primarily in who it would permit in its military or stuff like that. It wasn't as if there were huge massacres of all the alien species in the galaxy, or that they were shipped off to other worlds, etc.

 

Well there WAS mass enslavement though.

 

I'm not entirely up-to-date on the EU, so maybe you could help me out: did Palpatine run for office on a New Order Party ticket? Did it exist before his ascension to the throne? And how much power did it possess after he declared himself Emperor?

 

No, No, and No. The New Order is a creation of Palpatine during his ten years in office as Chancellor. COMPNOR (or more precisely, it's predecessor) was created during this as a means of reforming the Republic in the wake of the Seperatists disloyalty.

 

And even then, not all fascist states were openly racist. National Socialism certain was, and to a much lesser extent Franco's regime; but Mussolini was loathe to initiate anti-Jewish laws until it became apparent that he had to appease Hitler. Mussolini found scapegoats in anti-war syndicalists, socialists, anarchists, liberals and immigrants. This seems to owe more to the fact that 19th-century biologicism was more en vogue in Northern Europe than elsewhere than out of any goodwill on the part of Mussolini, however.