Defending Democracy: Reactions to Extremism in Interwar Europe

3 The Defense: Strategies against Extremism

c h a p t e r t h r e e The Defense Strategies against Extremism What instruments are at the disposal of democratic incumbents to react to extremist challenges that threaten to take over the democratic system and turn it into something else? The existing empirical literature is not of great help in answering this question: while some country-studies on this topic exist, in general they pay little attention to comparability or cumulability of knowledge . Comparative analyses are rare and often atheoretical (e.g., Canu 1996). Often discussed for its normative implications on what is desirable to support the cause of democracy, this question has received relatively little attention from a theoretical point of view. In this chapter I o√er a definition of ‘‘defense of democracy’’ and build a typology of defensive strategies. Then I discuss the four ‘‘polar’’ strategies (repression, incorporation, purge, education), focusing in particular on the first two, the most relevant in the context of this book. Strategies of Defense of Democracy: A Typology The concept of ‘‘defense of democracy’’ encompasses all activities, be they formal provisions or political strategies, that are explicitly and directly under- 48 The Theoretical Framework taken to protect the democratic system from the threat of its internal opponents . This definition, although broad, excludes reactions against external opponents, as in the case of war, as well as, for example, more ‘‘indirect’’ actions such as the promotion of economic development or literacy that, according to some, might contribute, if not to the existence of democracy, to its ‘‘quality,’’ however measured (e.g., Diamond 1992). The definition and the typology focus on reactions to extremism by institutional (mainly state) actors , and therefore excludes civil society reactions against extremism.∞ The intension of the concept can be ordered in a two-dimensional property space, on the basis of the prevailing exclusive-repressive or inclusiveeducational nature of the defensive strategies, and on the basis of the time range of their political objective, short- or long-term. Given the complexity of the matter, two notes of caution are in order at this stage: first, these two distinctions are not strictly dichotomous, and rather express prevalence of one status on the other. Repressive measures against certain actors might exert indirect nonrepressive e√ects on other actors, while inclusive measures may not be totally devoid of repression. The distinction between short- and longterm measures identifies a prevailing time frame—that is, by what time the proposed objective of strengthening democracy is to be achieved according to the designs of the defenders. Thus, saying that a certain defensive measure is aimed at achieving short-term e√ects by no means excludes the possibility that the same measure will also have longer-term e√ects, and vice versa. The second note of caution refers to the examples given for the four main types of defensive strategies: these do not aim to constitute an exhaustive list of strategies of defense in all possible times and contexts. Such an enterprise would necessitate a major detour from the topic of this book. Especially for the short-term strategies, most of the examples refer to the kind of measures that were typical of interwar European democracies. The focus of this chapter is on short-term measures of defense, which aim to stem the development of an existing challenge, to prevent its snowballing— in short, to stop it from taking over the system. Their declared immediate goal is democratic survival, especially in the worst cases, such as those analyzed in this book. This is not the focus of long-term defensive measures, which attempt to reinforce and stabilize the basic procedures and values of the democratic system—in other words, to help its consolidation.≤ Table 3.1 identifies four ‘‘polar’’ types of strategy of defense, labeled ‘‘militancy ,’’ ‘‘incorporation,’’ ‘‘purge,’’ and ‘‘education.’’ Militancy refers to those The Defense: Strategies against Extremism 49 Table 3.1 Conceptual Reconstruction of ‘‘Defense of Democracy’’ Time range of the objective Short-term Long-term Militancy Purge Repressive Nature of measures Accommodative Incorporation Education strategies, normally based on formal legislation but also consisting of interventions in the realm of ‘‘invisible’’ politics (Bobbio 1978), which try to curb, de jure or de facto, the political and civil rights of certain subjects on the basis of their political opinions or activities, which have been defined as harmful to the survival of the democratic system...