Imperialism is a defining feature of capitalist modernity and, in the twentieth century, found a number of ideological expressions. This workshop is concerned with the question of fascist imperialism. Understanding “fascism” broadly as the ideology and politics that emerged in Japan, Italy, and Germany, it seeks to investigate the empires developed by these countries in the context of the wider, global experience of imperialism. To what extent can we distinguish the empires of the Axis powers from liberal imperialism? Were their race and gender politics distinctively exploitative? What was the relationship between the colony and the metropole in the radicalization of fascist regimes? What evidence is there of transfers of imperial strategies between fascist and non-fascist empires?

Proposing a transnational and comparative approach to the question of fascist imperialism, the workshop focuses on three sets of questions. First, it considers the “newness” of the empires set up by Japan, Italy, and Germany. What were the continuities with pre-World War I power politics? How distinctive was fascist from liberal imperialism? Second, the workshop examines inter-Axis connections. To what extent did the three regimes find a common ground over imperial questions, perhaps even radicalizing one another? Ultimately the workshop seeks to address the broader problem of the relationship of fascism, imperialism and a new world order during the 1930s and early 1940s. Whereas early fascism was very nation-centered, global imperialist implications became more important during the 1930s and during World War II. Thereby the workshop attempts to shed new light on how fascist domestic reform was connected to attempts to revise the world order.

This is a two-day workshop, to be held at the Center for Advanced Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, Munich. Submissions are elicited for papers examining the imperial dimensions of Japan, Germany, and Italy in a comparative, transnational or global perspective. The aim is to collect the contributions into an edited publication. The conference is fully funded and all participants will have travel expenses and accommodation paid by the organizers. The keynote speech will be delivered by Professor Victoria de Grazia (Columbia University).

The following three thematic areas are envisioned.

Thematic Area I. Fascist Dynamics: Imperialism and the Radicalization of Regimes

This theme focuses on the relationship between practices in the empire and domestic politics. To what extent did policies developed to rule and build an empire influence the way regimes governed the metropole? Did fascist practices—for example racism, planned economies, violence—have colonial origins or were they predominantly produced at home? Did imperialism enact fascism or simply radicalize existing regimes?

Thematic Area II. Transnational Dynamics: Inter-Axis Cooperation and Empire-Building

This theme examines the connections between at least two Axis countries. How did Japanese, Germans, and Italians think about the imperial politics of one another? To what extent were there encounters, cooperation, and tensions? To what degree was the Axis alliance based on empire building?

Thematic Area III. Global Dynamics: Axis imperialism in the history of the 20th century

This theme investigates the way in which contemporaries and historians distinguished fascist empires from their liberal and Soviet counterparts. While these societies presented important differences in their state formation and ideology, they look more alike in the way that they ruled their empires. In this sense, we welcome contributions from specialists in Soviet or liberal imperialisms who are able to add a comparative dimension to the Axis powers. This could include a focus on World War II which, from the perspective of the Axis Powers, was also an imperial war.
Please submit abstracts (250-300 words) by April 6 by emailing the organizers:
Daniel Hedinger (hedinger.daniel@gmail.com) & Reto Hofmann (reto.hofmann@monash.edu)