While scholars within the English School have increasingly approached the traditionally liberal concept of solidarism in a normatively agnostic fashion, the idea of an ‘illiberal solidarism’ and historical manifestations thereof remain underexplored. One notable case in point surrounds the peculiar body of Italian interwar international thought, herein referred to as ‘international Fascism’. By discerning a synchronic outline of international Fascism, alongside the manner by which this project mutated and ultimately failed as it transformed from a vision theorised in the abstract to a practical initiative under the auspices of the Fascist regime, this article offers historical and theoretical insights into the realisability of illiberal forms of solidarism. Combining this historical account with theoretical insights derived from Reus-Smit's study on international order under conditions of cultural diversity, this article argues that the realisation of some form of solidarism necessitates the acceptance of a substantive pluralist component. Yet messianic illiberal visions that endeavour to retain the states-system, while simultaneously asserting the superiority of one community or a highly exclusionary vision of the ‘good life’, ostensibly lack the capacity to reconcile the contradictions inherent in efforts to universalise such projects.
This article recovers the activities, international thought, and reception of Muriel Innes Currey during the formative decades of the twentieth century. As both an ardent campaigner on behalf of the League of Nations Union and a fascist sympathizer, the paper highlights the variegated beliefs and tensions encapsulated within Currey's thinking as she attempted to reconcile advocacy for the League of Nations with a peculiar mélange of High Tory conservatism, Italophilic solidarity, and fascist sympathies. The contribution of this study is two-fold. First, building on efforts to excavate the history of women's international thought from undue obscurity, this article expands the referent of analysis to the thought and activity of a hitherto neglected woman, yet one overwhelmingly pro-fascist in orientation. Second, discerning Currey's thought contributes to redressing a double erasure within the history of the discipline: the gendered elision of women's international thinking and the concurrent amnesia surrounding fascism and its place within the then-fledgling discipline of international relations. Currey may have been on the periphery of academia; however, she was nevertheless a thinker who engaged with key questions occupying, and institutions affiliated with, the emergent field.
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