Volume (8): Issue (1)

The aim of this article is to analyse the composition of the Italian political elite during the 21-year Fascist regime (192243). Even today the writings on this subject, which have always been circumscribed by the axioms state/party (Gentile 2002; Aquarone 1995) and authoritarianism/totalitarianism (Collotti 2004; Gentile 2002; Tarchi 2003), have not managed to find a synthesis to define the regime’s true nature. It is our belief that an empirical study of the political elite can help to define these questions.

Mussolini’s authority was established on the basis of a complex system of rivalries that existed between different agencies (political, personal, party, senior administration, traditional and parallel bureaucracies, business, etc.) which brought the competition into a political market. In this market, the Duce and the Fascist Party each with their own respective infrastructures controlled access to resources and exchange mechanisms that determined the quality of the actors. Mussolini was perfectly aware of this, and he managed it by favouring the most faithful and loyal of groups. At the same time, he had to be vigilant not to dilute his charismatic authority by becoming merely the organisation’s leader: such work required the continuous intensification of his myth. All these operations inevitably led to a process of deregulation that upset the decision-making process.

Using data collected as part of the University of Lisbon’s Institute of Social Sciences’ project Elites, single party and political decision-making in the era of fascisms: Portugal, Spain, Italy and Germany, this article seeks to describe the socio-political profile of the Third Reich’s ministerial elite from 1933 to 1945, and to understand the recruitment variables that led to the appointment of these men to Hitler’s government, trying to provide a political description of the Nazi ministerial elite. Above all, the case of the Third Reich demonstrates the extreme diminution of the power of government, which was achieved by strengthening the Nazi Party’s parallel apparatus. In this way, the Nazi Party was transformed into practically the only recruitment source for the ministerial elite, taking control of the government while simultaneously diminishing the relevance of that elite.

The hybrid nature of the Nazi system of decision-making (a blend of extreme modernity, totalitarian ambition, and neo-feudal elements based on personal loyalty and the charismatic authority of the leader) found eloquent expression in the context of the regime’s propaganda machinery. Multiple, competing power-bases were constructed around the authority of elite party and state figures across the spectrum of the regime’s propaganda activities. Each of them forged their own ad hoc jurisdictional sphere, eroding Goebbels’ totalitarian vision for NS propaganda. The result was a behemoth of contradictory interests and strategies that repeatedly undermined coordination across the propaganda domain. Ironically, modernity and neo-feudalism were reconciled only towards the end of the war, after Goebbels had won most of the jurisdictional battles against his party and state opponents, regaining Hitler’s full confidence and subjecting the supremely modern propaganda apparatus of a waning Third Reich to his personal, near-total control.

This article seeks to contribute to the study of political centralisation in Portugal under Salazar, focusing on the council of ministers and its decision-making role and exploring the links between the dictator and his ministers (193339). The authors discuss the centralist strategy of the dictator based on a quantitative and qualitative study of Antnio de Oliveira Salazar’s diaries: detailed accounts of his routines, audiences, meetings and even telephone calls. Our conclusions indicate Salazar perceived his cabinet more as a crisis management committee, as meetings occurred irregularly and the agenda was considerably focused on internal and external crises and major international political events. The article also provides a more accurate notion of the main features of decision-making during the regime’s institutionalisation by exploring Salazar’s individual relations with his ministers and inner circle. As Salazarism is often compared to its Iberian counterpart, Francoism, important differences between the two regimes in this domain are noted.

After noting some of the unique features of Franco’s dictatorship this article analyses the institutional configuration of Franco’s first government. It then addresses the relationship between General Franco and the official party, Falange Espaola y de las JONS from its creation in April 1937, and the relationship between it and the government after the creation of the first cabinet in February 1938; the internal composition, the dynamics of the council of ministers and its political priorities during the war years; and the recruitment criteria, socio-biographical profile and political careers of those who became ministers.