ABSTRACT

To discuss the organic corporatism of Italian Fascism is to discuss a new type of relationship between the state and its citizens, and thus to examine how authoritarian regimes sought to resolve the problem of representation. The Italian Fascist regime shifted its orientation away from theories of the social contract, based on the voluntary participation of the individual, to ‘organic’ theories, in which the individual was seen as a simple particle within a body that pre-existed him. An implicit consequence of the idea of an organic and corporatist state was that the Fascist Grand Council and the Partito Nazionale Fascisti (PNF) ceased to be private entities and became to all intents and purposes organs of constitutional significance. The years 1925 and 1926 marked the end of the PNF’s collaboration with other parties, and the shift towards a more clear-cut fascist and corporatist regime. In July 1926, furthermore, both the Ministry of Corporations and the National Council of Corporations were established.