Roger David Griffin (born 31 January 1948)[1] is a British professor of modern history andpolitical theorist atOxford Brookes University, England. His principal interest is the socio-historical and ideological dynamics offascism, as well as various forms of political orreligious fanaticism.[2]
Griffin obtained a First in French and German Literature fromOxford University, then began teachingHistory of ideas at Oxford Polytechnic (nowOxford Brookes). Becoming interested in the study of extremist right-wing movements and regimes which have shaped modern history, Griffin obtained a PhD from Oxford University in 1990. He first developed his palingenesis theory of fascism in his PhD thesis.[2] His best known work isThe Nature of Fascism (1991).[3] In May 2011, he received an Honorary Doctorate from theUniversity of Leuven in recognition of his services to the comparative study of fascism.[2]
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Griffin's theory, set out first inThe Nature of Fascism in 1991, and more recently inFascism: An Introduction to Comparative Fascist Studies (2017), offers aheuristically usefulideal type of fascism as a form of revolutionary organic nationalist movement, orpalingenetic ultranationalism. For Griffin, fascism directly mobilises popular energies or works through an elite to eventually achieve thecultural hegemony of new values and the total rebirth of the 'ultranation', whether conceived as a historic nation-state or as a race orethnos, from what it defines as the present state of decadence. Fascism is an ideology that has assumed a large number of specific national permutations and several distinct organizational forms. Moreover, it is a political project that continues to evolve to this day throughout theEuropeanized world, though it remains highly marginalised compared with the central place it occupied ininter-war Europe, and its central role in identity politics has been largely replaced by non-revolutionary forms of radical right-wing populism.
Griffin's approach, though still highly contested in some quarters, has nonetheless influenced the comparative literature on fascism of the last 25 years, drawing on the work ofGeorge Mosse,Stanley Payne, andEmilio Gentile to highlight the revolutionary and totalising politico-cultural nature of the fascist revolution in marked contrast toMarxist approaches. His book,Modernism and Fascism, locates the mainspring of the fascist drive for national rebirth in themodernist bid to achieve an alternativemodernity, which is driven by a rejection of the decadence of 'actually existing modernity' underliberal democracy or tradition. The fascist attempt to institute a different civilisation and a new temporality in the West found its most comprehensive expression in the 'modernist states' ofBenito Mussolini andAdolf Hitler. Since 1945 fascism has diversified and can no longer form a mass movement that is populist and charismatic, having been reduced instead to terroristic attacks on liberal democratic society and those it deems 'enemies' of the 'true' nation/race and its rebirth.
His most recent research has been on terrorism. In hisTerrorist's Creed: Fanatical Violence and the Human Need for Meaning he studies the origins and motivations behind terrorism. He compares the origins of terrorism to the extremes of theNational Socialists in the 1930s, noting that "fanatics" separate the world into good and evil, and then undergo "heroic doubling" where they see themselves as warriors in the battle between good and evil.[4]
This theme will be pursued and deepened in his next monographThe Divisible Self: Heroic Doubling and the Origins of Modern Violence (Columbia: Agenda, Columbia University Press, September 2021).
Griffin was co-founder of the open access journalFascism (Brill) and co-founder ofCOMFAS, International Association for the Comparative Study of Fascism, directed by Professor Constantin Iordachi (Central European University).
Griffin has translated works byNorberto Bobbio andFerruccio Rossi-Landi [it].
Griffin used to counttrance music andrave culture among his interests. He wrote the sleeve notes for the two CD volumeReturn To The Source: Deep Trance & Ritual Beats, explaining his liking of the genre and how it relates to society.[5]
