Authoritarianism, Fascism, And National Populism By Gino Germani

During the interwar period of 1919 to 1939, the European political arena witnessed a radical change in governmental organization. Historically this period has been defined by authoritarian Fascism and Nazism. In fact, Gino Germani a professor at the University of Buenos Aires hypothesizes that the structural tension inherent in all modern society between growing secularization and the necessity of maintaining a nationalist centred government was sufficient for the integration of causal factor in modern authoritarian trends. In Germani’s book Authoritarianism, Fascism, and National Populism, his main argument is that authoritarianism should be seen as a primarily middle-class reactionary movement. However through the authoritarian regimes of Pilsudski’s Poland and Dollfuss Austria, it will be demonstrated that authoritarian regimes during the interwar period are formed by authoritarian disposition and situational factors, that attempted to create a permanent solution of establishing or …show more content…
The Treaty of Versaille sign in 1919 created the destabilizing tension that would transform Central and Eastern Europe to Nazis, Fascist and authoritarian governments. The war and treaty resulted in the great empires of Europe to collapse, thereby creating a power vacuum for ethnic, territorial and traditional parties to provoke their cause. Moreover, the the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire forced the Entente powers to support self-determination of Serbs, Slovenes, Slovaks, Czechs and Croats. Poland regained their independence as a sovereign nation that integrated Poles, Lithuanians, Russians and