A geography of repression: The first years of the fascist Special Tribunal in Italy, 1926–1928

Abstract

This article analyzes the spatial and temporal patterning of political arrests during the initial years of the fascist regime in Italy, specifically from 1926 to 1928. During these crucial years, Italy's fascists acted rapidly to consolidate their power and to suppress their opponents. A key element of this takeover was the creation of a political court, the Special Tribunal. I examine the work of the Special Tribunal in two ways. First, I analyze the spatial patterning of political arrests on different scales, ranging from local to national. Second, using Agamben's concept of ‘states of exception’, I investigate how the fascists used political crises to further their activities of political suppression. I argue that while the Special Tribunal did target political enemies, it was also used as a sophisticated system of control of territory and population. Drawing on the techniques of the emerging field of historical geographic information systems (GIS), I use the Knox Index and hotspot analysis to focus on the role played by space and place in the fascist system of political oppression. This article contributes to a growing body of historical research focusing on the spatial dynamics of authoritarian regimes in interwar and wartime Europe and the geographies of their carceral practices.