Fascism, Ethnic Cleansing, and the ‘New Militarism’: Assessing the Recent Historical Sociology of Michael Mann

Abstract

For over 30 years, Michael Mann has been engaged in a project of impressive span and erudition: a historical sociology of power from ancient civilizations to the modern era. This essay examines Mann's recent contributions to this enterprise, namely, two major books on fascism and ethnic cleansing, and a third text devoted to the putative ‘militarist’ security policy of the United States. The review's argument is that, for all Mann's learning, his historical sociology of fascism is over‐generalized and his concept of democracy (key to his discussion of ethnic cleansing) is too vague. Mann's polemic against the current Bush administration is also found wanting, principally for its moral evasions. The essay concludes with a reminder of the hard choices that responsible politicians, as distinct from academics free of political responsibility, are compelled to make.

Key Words:

• Bush administration
• ethnic cleansing
• militarism
• fascism

Notes

1. That was Hannah Arendt's view. I discuss it at some length in Baehr 2002.

2. This combination accords with minimalist definition of democracy enshrined in such documents as Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Free and fair elections, and the ability of opposition parties to criticize office holders without fear of physical attack or intimidation, are conditions that murderous cleansing must destroy.

3. Carothers 2004. He estimates that around 80 nations are presently stuck in this zone, representing versions of ‘feckless pluralism’ and ‘dominant power‐politics’. Uzbekistan (which has an official opposition – the Ozod Dehqonlar or Free Peasants party) is an obvious case. I mention it specifically because the massacre in the Uzbek Ferghana valley occurred as I was writing this article.

4. For a discussion of these concepts, see the April 2002 issue of the Journal of Democracy.

5. ‘Democracy's chance in Afghanistan’, Economist, 9 October 2004, p.11; ‘Polls isolate Taliban more than ever’, South China Morning Post, 11 October 2004, p. A9 (this is a Reuters report).

6. For details, see Kaplan 2005.

7. The relationship between American nationhood and American foreign policy is lucidly discussed in Fukuyama 2004: 104–114.

8. ‘The Imperial Republic’, in Aron 2002: 245–403, at p. 254. Aron's text is a model of how sociologists might understand the complexities of American foreign policy.

9. See Gaddis 2004.

10. The expression comes from Mearsheimer 2005.