For this assignment, imagine that you are working for a think tank that has formed in response to growing concerns regarding the global rise of fascist and authoritarian regimes. In response to such concerns, your supervisor has decided to hire a group of young scholars and professionals with expertise on a range of political ideologies to convene as a working group to discuss diverse perspectives on how to respond to fascist leaders and authoritarian regimes. You have been asked to assist in the preparations for this workshop by producing an essay that will build on your expertise on political ideologies. Your supervisor has provided you with the following instructions on how to structure your essay:
The main goals and learning objectives: The main goal of this essay will be to identify what you take to be the important insights or lessons that can be learned from thinkers that have analyzed fascist or authoritarian regimes from two distinct perspectives.
Major learning objectives associated with this essay: develop the capacity to analyze and defend major claims made by authors under discussion (writing skills: anticipating and responding to counterarguments, identifying and avoiding logical fallacies, removing irrelevant or extraneous details from your discussion of major claims); develop the capacity to build on scholarly insights or ideas produced in one setting, by assessing their significance for people living in a different time or place (writing skills: abstract reasoning, reasoning by analogy).
General guidelines and structure:
- The first part of the essay should make an argument about the most important lessons that can be learned from one thinker that is known for expertise on fascist movements or authoritarian regimes. This part of the essay should focus on one of the following thinkers: Hannah Arendt, Katherine Belew, or Robert Paxton.
- The second part of the essay should make an argument about the most important lessons that can be learned from one thinker associated with an ideological tradition that is not generally taken seriously by liberal thinkers or policymakers. This part of the essay should focus on assigned (or recommended) works produced by one of the following thinkers: Robert Owens, Emma Goldman, Peter Kropotkin, Julius Nyere, Franz Fanon, W.E.B. Du Bois, Donna Murch, or Edward Said. What does this thinker say about the causes and consequences of fascism, authoritarian repression, and/or colonial subjugation? What strategies should people pursue in response to such developments, according to this thinker?
- The concluding paragraph should summarize the main “takeaway” in each section, and offer a brief discussion of what you take to be the significance of these works in relation to a contemporary development or recent news item.
- Additional writing tips: In discussing each thinker, be sure to follow the writing guidelines outlined in previous prompts. Be specific in elaborating on major claims made by such thinkers, and be sure to cite relevant passages from texts that were provided on the syllabus or in the module.
- Please note: This assignment requires you to “defend” ideas produced by a pair of authors that you can choose. However, you do not have to choose an author that you actually support and could write in defense of ideas that you dislike. The purpose of this exercise is to give these ideas a hearing by offering the strongest defense for their continued relevance– just as law students must learn to defend various positions in order to serve the range of clients that they will represent.