FASCISM, RADICALIZATION, AND WAR, 1914-50s:
OCCUPATION, COUNTERINSURGENCY,
COLLABORATIONISM, CIVIL WAR

Seventh Convention of the
International Association for Comparative Fascist Studies (ComFas)

Barcelona, 28, 29, 30 May 2025

The event is organized by the International Association for Comparative Fascist Studies (COMFAS) in cooperation with Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and GRECS, Grup de Recerca en Guerra, Radicalisme Polític I Conflicte Social

Organizers
Javier Rodrigo, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (coordinator)
David Alegre, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Miguel Alonso, UNED, Madrid
Maximiliano Fuentes, Universitat de Girona
Constantin Iordachi, CEU PU, Vienna, Austria
Aristotle Kallis, Keele University, UK
Francisco Morente, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Giorgia Priorelli, Universitat de Girona
Joan Pubill, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Margalida Roig, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Event Rationale
Despite having grown up as separate academic niches, the history of fascism and war are inextricably linked. Mussolini considered fascism a ‘permanent state of war’. Beyond the metaphor, fascism grew exponentially from the state of exception to the state of war. War created frameworks for political opportunity and radicalization that transformed fascist regimes. Therefore, fascism cannot be understood without war - or rather, without wars: colonial, civil, or occupation wars. Against this background, the seventh ComFas Convention aims to bring together researchers from different disciplinary fields, geographical areas, and research traditions; and to engage them in a scholarly debate on violence within the field of radical right, fascist, and neo-fascist movements and regimes, and the links with war as a pattern for radicalization. We invite contributions on empirical case studies as well as on synchronic and diachronic comparisons exploring the relationship
between historical fascism and colonial, occupation, counterinsurgency or civil war. We are particularly interested in the role of violence, male and female
identities, occupation policies and collaborationism. The Seventh Sixth Convention of the International Association for Comparative Fascist Studies (COMFAS) aims to
bring these research streams together in order to foster synergies and crossfertilization.

We invite theoretical, comparative or case-study contributions from all over the world exploring topics such as:

• Colonial war and fascism
• Social militarism, paramilitarism and radicalization to violence
• Paramilitarism, war discourses and forging radicalized communities
• Gender aspects; explorations of concepts of masculinity and femininity in relation to fascist war cultures
• War and dictatorship
• Fascist warfare: occupation, annihilation, genocide
• Civil war and fascism
• Counterinsurgency and fascism
• Collaborationism and fascism
• Neofascism, radicalization and war

Scholars interested in attending or contributing to the conference should send a mail with an abstract, a short bio, and contact information to joan.pubill@uab.cat no later than 15 February 2025.

We welcome individual papers as well as panel (from 3 to 5 panelists) proposals. Conference participation is free for COMFAS members (see our Membership Policy and application form at www.comfas.org). For non-members, a participation fee of € 75 applies. Conference participants will be invited to submit revised versions of their papers for publication in an edited volume and in Fascism: Journal of
Comparative Fascist Studies.

For further information, please contact the organizers
at miguelalonso@geo.uned.es or giorgia.priorelli@udg.edu