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Civil Democracy Protection is an overview of attempts by organisations to oppose groups that are perceived to threaten democracy.The book traces the history of civil democracy protection actors from the establishment of democratic constitutional states up to the present day and develops a set of systematic and comparative approaches. The central question it explores is: What significance do civil actors have for the establishment and consolidation of democratic constitutional states, especially in relation to the protection of democracy by state institutions? The volume includes contributions from historians and social scientists, who combine idiographic approaches that focus on the specifics of individual cases with nomothetic approaches that aim to provide generalisable insights, incorporating historical experiences from various European countries and the USA in the 20th and early 21st century.This book will be of interest to scholars of democracy protection, civil society, consolidation of democracy, and anti- extremism.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 International license.

Ideocracies, or ideological dictatorships, such as the'Third Reich', the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China have, much more than any other kinds of autocracy, characterized the history of the 20th century. Despite their undeniable loss of significance, ideocracies have not disappeared from the world in the 21st century. This book explores the functioning of ideocracies and analyses the typical interplay of legitimation, co-optation and repression which autocratic elites use in an attempt to stabilize their rule. In the first part of the book, the contributors discuss the conceptual history of the ideocracy notion. The second part offers case studies pertaining to the Soviet State, Italy, the National Socialist Regime, the German Democratic Republic, the People's Republic of China, North Korea and Cuba. Finally, the third part compares various ideocracies and draws together key themes. Uniting the perspectives of history, philosophy and political science through the use of case studies and systematic comparisons, this book offers a unique examination of ideocracies both past and present which will be of interest to students and scholars researching political regimes, political history and comparative politics, as well as other disciplines.

I. Untersuchungsgegenstand und Problematik'Indessen ist zu erkennen, daß trotz des reichlich hervorgebrachten Schrifttums zum Thema Extremismus elementare Aufgaben, deren Lösung eigentlich zu den allerer­ sten Schritten bei der wissenschaftlichen Bearbeitung des Gebietes hätten gehören 1 müssen, noch nicht gelöst waren.'Diese Klage der Meinungsforscher Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann und Erp Ring, 1984 im Rahmen einer Untersuchung zum,,Extremismus-Potential unter jungen Leuten in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland'vorgetragen, hat ihre volle Berechtigung. Sie betrifft die herrschende Unklameit und Verunsicherung im Hinblick auf jene theoretischen Grundlagen, die der empirischen Untersuchung dringend bedürfen, sollen sie nicht im'luftleeren Raum'operieren. Der höchst unbefriedigende Kenntnisstand wird durch nichts augenfälliger doku­ mentiert als durch die verwirrende Vielfalt der Extremismusbegriffe: Handelt es sich um einen heuristisch wertlosen Terminus aus dem Arsenal politischer 2'Kampfbegriffe', oder taugt er auch zur wissenschaftlichen Analyse? Ist er Ausfluß 3 juristischer Dogmatik, oder eignet er sich als terminologisches Werkzeug des Sozi­ alforschers? Lassen sich'linke'und'rechte'Phänomene unter dieser Sammelbe­ zeichnung sinnvoll zusammenfassen, oder verläuft die'eigentliche'Grenze zwi­ 4 schen'antidemokratischen'und'antikapitalistischen'Positionen? Wohnt dem Be­ griff,Jediglich eine fallzentrierte, wertungsabhängige Strukturfestigkeit'5 inne, oder besitzt er eine Bedeutung, die die Grenzen politischer Räume und Epochen über­ schreitet? - Fragen, die einer zusammenhängenden Beantwortung harren.

The Western tradition of the constitutional state, with its ancient roots, defines political extremes as the epitome of that what must be absolutely rejected. It highlights tyranny, despotism, despotic rule, non-autonomy, ruthless enforcing of interests as ‘extreme', contrasting this to a virtuous mean which guarantees moderation. In this volume, the culmination of twenty years of extensive research, Uwe Backes provides a conceptual history of the notions'extreme'and'extremism'from antiquity to the present day. The terminological history of political extremes had been related for more then two millennia with the term mesotês used in the Aristotelian ethics and the theory of mixed constitution. Both doctrines influenced the republicanism of the North Italian city states and later the United States of America as well as British parliamentarism. The positions of moderation and extremes were not joined until the course of the French Revolution with the distinction of right- and left-wing, and this is how it still exists today in the intellectual-political geography. This unique source based study reconstructs these developments from ancient times to the present.Tracing the history of the concept of political extremism from Ancient Greece to the present day, this is an invaluable resource for scholars of democracy, extremism and political sociology.