The Fascist Moment: Security, Exclusion, Extermination

Abstract

Security is cultivated and mobilized by enacting exclusionary practices, and exclusion is cultivated and realized on security grounds. This article explores the political dangers that lie in this connection, dangers which open the door to a fascist mobilization in the name of security. To do so the article first asks: what happens to our understanding of fascism if we view it through the lens of security? But then a far more interesting question emerges: what happens to our understanding of security if we view it through the lens of fascism? Out of these questions it is suggested that the central issue might be less a question of “security and exclusion” and much more a question of “security and extermination.”