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Dictatorship revisited: consensus, coercion, and strategies of survival

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 August 2017

Paul Corner
Paul Corner*
Affiliation:
Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences, University of Siena,Italy
*
*Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The article examines certain of the more recent perspectives on twentieth- century dictatorship, looking in particular at the complex relationship between the dictator and the people. Extending its range beyond that of the ‘classic’ totalitarianisms, the paper argues for a more nuanced approach to the question of popular support for or resistance to regimes and suggests that many of the old binaries concerning popular attitudes need to be revised, with a consequent readjustment of the roles often attributed to violence, to ideology and other cultural factors, and to the varied seductive attractions of mass mobilisation. While pointing to the difficulties of reaching any very definite conclusions in an area characterised by ambivalence and ambiguity, the paper attempts to suggest certain variables related to popular behaviour that may have determined the degree to which regimes were able to impose domination.

Italian summary

L'articolo prende in esame alcune delle più recenti interpretazioni del rapporto esistente, nei regimi ‘totalitari’ del ventesimo secolo, fra il dittatore e la popolazione e mette in dubbio quell'interpretazione più tradizionale che mantiene che gli atteggiamenti popolari siano delineati o da resistenza o da conformismo obbligato. Pur insistendo sull'importanza della violenza implicita ed esplicita che caratterizzava le attività dei regimi, l'articolo cerca di indagare i vari modi in cui venivano espressi gli atteggiamenti popolari, spesso caratterizati più da strategie di sopravvivenza che non da posizioni di accettazione o di resistenza, così riflettendo un'ambivalenza e un'ambiguità nei confronti del regime. Nelle conclusioni si analizzano i modi in cui tali atteggiamenti possono aver influito sulle capacità di dominio dei regimi.

Keywords

dictatorshippopular opinionconsensuscoerciontotalitarianismeveryday life
Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 22 , Special Issue 4: Special Issue: The Force of History: Modern Italian Historiography and the Legacy of Christopher Duggan , November 2017 , pp. 435 - 444
Copyright
© 2017 Association for the Study of Modern Italy 

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