The Palingenetic Political Community: Rethinking the Legitimation of Totalitarian Regimes in Inter-War Europe

Abstract

This article argues that conventional approaches to the concepts of consensus and resistance have to be revised once it is accepted that the totalitarian apparatus of authoritarian societies results from the attempt not to destroy a genuine political culture, but to transform it in order to realise a utopian vision of a reborn society based on a new type of human being. It postulates the existence of a 'palingenetic political community', which forms when the revolutionary vision of a totalitarian movement finds a spontaneous resonance in a population which is undergoing a deep-seated 'sense-making crisis'. It goes on to suggest a number of potentially revealing case studies in the relationship between totalitarianism and the palingenetic community, which has helped legitimise them and generated varying degrees of populist consensus for its policies. The conclusion consists of a number points that might be taken into account in exploring new ways to conceptualise consensus and resistance within the human sciences, on the basis of this heuristic framework.