Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism as a category originates in the European Interwar period. The first models to win favour in political science and political theory were ‘statist’; by the end of the Cold War, these had been overtaken by theories proposing an ‘ideological’ conception organised around the New Man and the new society. Both, however, may be understood to be sub-types of ‘classical’ totalitarianism, which may be extended legitimately in the contemporary period to accommodate the rise of new, politically-dangerous forms of religious extremism (primarily, ‘Islamism’), though which are, necessarily, rather incompatible with theorisations of ‘neoliberal’, ‘biopolitical’, or ‘digital’ totalitarianism.