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This study examines the activities of those allied to the British National Party (BNP) and al-Muhajiroun, groups deemed ‘extremist’ by mainstream society, particularly those actions done as part of the extremist group, but which engage with the wider community. The research comprised of participant-observation and biographical interviews, both with extremist and non-extremist activists and focused on public community engagement. It was conducted in two sites in Stoke-on-Trent; a ‘white site’ with a number of BNP members in leadership positions, and a more dispersed ‘Islamic site’ in which a number of young men were engaged in al-Muhajiroun’s street-based activism. In the context of Community Cohesion and Preventing Violent Extremism policies and programmes, these groups and their members are presented as an existential threat to the nation while still allowed to carry on much of their business. In this light, the research looks at the backgrounds, connections, and political attitudes of extremist activists in order to situate them as community members and not as standing apart from society. The thesis asks how the political and policy context affects their contact with others. It finds that the connections and continuities, in background and political attitudes, between extremists and others, makes clear cut divisions problematic, and so undermines the rhetoric of ‘them and us’. The thesis argues that the government and media emphasis on particular extremist groups, as opposed to racism and intolerance more generally, is counterproductive. The singling out of particular groups allows those social groups from which the stereotyped extremists are drawn to see themselves as unfairly targeted. The conflation of political extremism with terrorism and other violent extremism at the same time exaggerates any threat of violence. A sense of injustice and fear can then fuel further extremism.

This thesis explores the relationship between revolution and fascism. While subjectivities produced by revolution are assumed to be inherently antifascist, through a sustained analysis of contemporary theories of revolution and the theory and praxis of Frantz Fanon, this thesis will argue that revolution's bio- politics, Prometheanism and accelerated temporality inevitably cause revolutionary projects to reproduce the very fascistic structures they intended to dismantle. This thesis will conclude with an analysis of zapatismo, the theoretical praxis of the zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico. Arguing against reading zapatismo as a classic Marxist revolutionary system or Orientalizing it within anthropological terms, this thesis will demonstrate how zapatismo functions as what Felix Guattari terms a “metamodel”, and opens up a system of revolutionary change that is achieved through a practice of constant resistance. As it is used in this thesis, fascism is explicitly not limited to statist manifestations of totalitarian regimes, what will be termed “macro” fascisms. Rather fascism represents any form of domination of one group over another. This is explicitly not limited to totalitarian states, but also located within smaller social groups and individuals, what Deleuze and Guattari termed “microfascisms”. The term fascism is intended to have an affective response and through its use this thesis intends to illicit a critical reading that would make an internal diagnostic mechanism, a mechanism for movements to analyse the ways in which power operates within the movement, integral to all revolutionary projects.

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James Connolly (1868-1916), Socialist leader, labour union organiser and Irish Republican general, pursued an active career of over thirtyfive years duration in left-wing politics during the period of the Second International. During this time, he played an influential role in the Social Democratic and Labour movements in Ireland, Scotland and the United States. This stuy examines his relationships with the activists and organisations of left-wing labour in Scotland in the period 1890-1916 and moreover, seeks to establish his significance as a "Marxian Syndicalist"; an activist working in a Marxist tradition distinct from both the state socialism of the Social Democratic International and the Marxism - Leninism of the Comintern. Connolly's formative years in the Social Democratic and labour movements of his native Edinburgh (1890-96) are examined in some detail, and an attempt is made to delineate some characteristics both of the mainstream of British Marxism and of the uniqueness of the situation in Edinburgh, which were important for his personal development. Subsequently, his importance in the secession of the Scottish 'impossibilist' faction from the all-British Marxist movement in 1902-3 is analysed. At this point, there is some emphasis on the theories of the Alrerican Marxist, Daniel De Leon, and of their importance both in Connolly's further theoretical development and of the Scottish Left generally. The American contribution to Connolly's thought - and his mature response to it - is then followed up, some consideration being given to his work in the American socialist movement in 1903-10. In the light of this experience, Connolly's further influence on Scottish leftwing labour in the period 1910-15 is traced; particular emphasis is laid on the Syndicalist elements in his thought and on the Scottish responses to it. Finally, there is some discussion of the relationship between the themes of Nationalism, Marxism and Syndicalism within the history of the Scottish Left in the period 1890-1920, and the concrete failure of Marxism within the Scottish working class movement is assessed against the background of the manifest advances of the nontheoretical parliamentary Labour Party.

The Jewish community in Britain has been characterised by its high degree of conformity. This study seeks to extend the parameters of Jewish life by including those hitherto excluded from the historical narrative so that the community can more effectively be viewed as a paradigm for understanding the challenges facing minority communities in their encounter with mainstream society. It sets Jewish involvement within the wider historical, social, economic, political and cultural context, in which it developed, focusing upon political radicalism in Manchester, 1889-1939, and Jewish participation in radical socialism, anarchism, bundism and communism. Nonconformity is here defined in terms of a distancing from both external pressures (e.g. social conformity with the wider community) and internal pressures (e.g. religious beliefs and concerns about communal image). Through the prism of Manchester the chapters will highlight debates surrounding the makeup and impact of pre-First World War involvement; the disproportionate involvement of Jews in radicalism; the nature of Jewish allegiance to communism as an ideological conversion or a convergence of interest and the impact of involvement on Jewish identity, described as ‘Jewish communists’ or ‘communist Jews’.The thesis draws upon new information from the radical Yiddish and English press, revealing the importance of English and foreign influences on pre-war radicalism. Its use of oral testimonies at the Manchester Jewish Museum and elsewhere has revealed in the post-war period, a layering of motivation, commitment and identity. Written chronologically, the periodization of this study enables connections and differences to be drawn. It shows significant discontinuity in involvement and influence between pre and post-First World War radical activity, unlike in London. In Manchester those drawn to communism post-war were almost entirely from an English-born generation. They were more representative of the communist Jew, whose communist identity superseded but did not eradicate their Jewish identity. The thesis shows that conversion to communism was not due to any inherent ethnic characteristics. From 1920-1932 it was a response to the same social and economic factors which influenced non-Jews to communism, but encased in a cultural and historical context. From 1933 that process of conversion continued but was greatly boosted by the desire to fight fascism. The communist led fight against fascism and provision of a popular youth club acted as an attraction to youngsters, who were subsequently influenced in differing degrees or not at all by Marxism. This resulted in different levels of commitment and identification, some of which continued after the war, resulting in the formation of a subculture of Marxist and secular left-wing Jews, who are still seen as nonconformists by the mainstream Jewish community.

The present study focuses on the activity of the Young Communist League (Komsomol) to promote the communist project during the so-called Thaw period in the Soviet Union (1953-1964). The term ‘communist project’ describes the complex temporal triangle in which the relevance of the present was rooted in its relationship to the heroic past and the bright future. Young people were supposed to emulate the heroism of previous generations while fighting remnants of the undesired past. This was presented as a precondition for achieving the communist future. The structure of this study reflects the chronology of the communist project. It analyzes the rhetoric used by the Young Communist League to promote the communist project and explores the strategies used to mobilize youth for building communism. The first chapter focuses on the organizational structure of the Komsomol and assesses its readiness for this task. Despite attempts to strengthen horizontal communication and control, streamline administration and reorganize its structure, the Komsomol remained hierarchal and bureaucratic. The second chapter explores the promotion of past heroism in rituals, social practices and the use of public space. The third chapter is also concerned with the past; it describes the Komsomol’s fight against ‘remnants of the past’, primarily religion and deviant behaviour such as hooliganism, heavy drinking and laziness. The final chapter focuses on the Komsomol’s attempts during the Thaw to bring about the future: its efforts in the economy, moral, political and cultural education, and the realm of leisure.

While domestic fascism within the United Kingdom has never critically challenged Parliamentary sovereignty, it has decisively disrupted public order since its roots were established in the inter-war political scene. The violence provoked by Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF) was one of the stimulating factors behind the enactment of the Public Order Act 1936. This Act significantly strengthened the powers of the police to regulate or proscribe varies forms of political activism. This thesis analyses the legal responses of Parliament, the police and the judiciary to interwar British fascism. In addition, by analysing the legal responses to public disorder from before and after the 1930s, it positions the BUF within their wider historical context which enables this thesis to assess and evaluate consistencies and discrepancies within the application of the law. By enhancing the historical contextualisation of the period with a critical legal lens, the principal forms of fascist propaganda are evaluated, including public processions, public meetings and the wearing of political uniform. It is argued that the application of a historico-legal methodology challenges the perception that the authorities were inherently politically biased. This thesis explores alternative factors which explain why the responses of the legal authorities appeared inconsistent in their approach to the far-Right and the far-Left. In order to critically analyse the police’s decision making process when monitoring political activism, the limitations of public order law and the nature of police discretion itself become fundamental components which offer a more balanced explanation for the appearance of political partiality within the police force.

This thesis seeks to show how the reassessment of Arendt's thought for contemporary international political theory must be grounded in her first major published work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, and, more specifically, in the concept of the political she outlines therein. The thesis begins by examining how Arendt interprets the political sui generis. It shows how this concept, which influences much of her scholarship from the 1950s onwards and serves as a critical measure against which she assesses modern-day events, is disclosed for the first time in Part II of Origins through her engagement with particular topics and phenomena related to European colonial imperialism. Using this somewhat neglected text as a point of departure, the main body of the thesis examines Arendt's thoughts on three ‘anti-political' impulses of the contemporary world that have clear international ramifications: sovereignty, nationalism and imperialism. The work is divided into three corresponding sections. Each contains a chapter providing an interpretive study of Arendt's text on the subject, followed by a chapter applying the key themes, insights and dangers previously highlighted to some of the most intractable global situations today such as the international human rights regime, atomic weaponry and war, biopolitical control, genocide studies and neoliberal globalisation. In so doing, the thesis does not aim to ‘find' in Arendt's work determinate answers to the crises of our time, but rather to use her perceptions as critical inspiration to think about them differently.