Building Dictatorships under Axis Rule: War, Military Occupation and Political Regimes

This book offers a broad comparative perspective on regime building under Axis rule during the Second World War, exploring case studies in Europe and Asia. Military occupation represents the highest degree of political, social and economic control over an occupied state and its society. This collective book analyses how the three poles of Axis rule—Nazi Germany, Italian Fascism and Authoritarian Japan—lead the dynamics of institution-building of political regimes of occupation under their direct or indirect control. The contributions examine how the ideological, political and economic relationship between the occupying forces and different segments of national and local elites were present in the institutional crafting of new regimes. Military occupation opened a window of opportunity for the takeover of power by different segments of these authoritarian elites and the tension and forced pacts between different projects of institutionalization of dictatorships were a clear sign of this dynamic process. In this context, the debates and the praxis of the construction of new dictatorial political systems are analysed, looking to identify the design of their institutions, the segments of the political elites that hegemonize them, the diffusion and promotion models present, and the attitudes of the Axis powers before them. This volume is ideal for all those interested in the study of War, Dictatorships and the global history and politics of Fascism.

Table of Contents:
1. Building Dictatorships under Axis Rule. Towards a Global Overview Antonio Costa Pinto 2. Hácha’s Protectorate. Limping Corporatism and Calibrated Collaboration in Bohemia and Moravia under Nazi Rule Radka Šustrová 3. ‘Hitler Gave the Slovaks a State’: On the Fascistization of Christian Nationalism and Social Catholicism in Tiso’s Slovakia, 1939–1942 Miloslav Szabó 4. "Not to recognise oneself as a serf is the worst of servitudes." Marshall Pétain as a dictator, July 1940-August 1944 Marc-Olivier Baruch 5. Norway under Vidkun Quisling: ‘Not guilty!’ Stein U. Larsen 6. The short-lived national-socialist Arrow-Cross government in Hungary: imported Fascism vs. local conservatism? Catherine Horel 7. The Ustasha Regime, State, and Nation-Building Process. State ‘Independence’ in the Axis ‘New Order’ Goran Miljan 8. The Nedić Regime in Occupied Serbia. Conflicting Loyalties and Aims Rastko Lompar 9. Building a puppet state: Italian Occupation and collaboration in Albania, 1939-1943 Enriketa Pandelejmoni 10. The Italian Social Republic. Legitimation Struggles and Unfulfilled Visions Goffredo Adinolfi 11.State (dis)continuity in occupied Greece: regimes of emergency Aristotle Kallis 12. Ideology and control: Instruments of authoritarianism in Japanese Manchuria Thomas David DuBois 13. From Constitutional Mirage to Party Hegemony: Building the Wang Jingwei Regime in Japanese-Occupied China (1939–1942) David Serfass