Interview Series

Dr. Paul Jackson
Professor in History of Radicalism & Extremism
University of Northampton, UK

Interviewer: Mikkel Dack, RCHGHR/History

Paul Jackson is a Professor in the History of Radicalism and Extremism at the University of Northampton. He specializes in the history and contemporary dynamics of fascism and the extreme right, and his most recent book is Pride in Prejudice: Understanding Britain’s Extreme Right (2022). He is the curator of the Searchlight Archive at the university, which is one of the UK’s largest collections of material related to the recent history of extreme right groups. He has engaged widely with the media, including national and international press, as well as for BBC radio and television, and he has written articles for the Guardian and the Huffington Post. He has collaborated with policymakers, professionals and activists, including creating bespoke training packages related to risks posed by the extreme right.

Can you begin by telling me a bit about yourself – professional background, institutional affiliations, research interests?

I am a historian by training and initially worked on British intellectuals and the First World War for my Ph.D. work, but soon after I graduated, I refocused my research on the British and international extreme right. This was a time, about 2010, when the far right was growing in the UK, with fascist organizations such as the British National Party becoming electorally successful. Things were clearly changing, and so I developed a role as a historian interested in how the past can help us understand contemporary situations, as well as an expert on historical forms of fascism and the extreme right. My Ph.D. supervisor was Professor Roger Griffin, and I was familiar with his influential model of fascism. So, I started to develop research that drew on this approach to examine understudied forms of fascism and the far right, including terrorism, nationalist social movements and new forms of online activism. This helped me secure a job at the University of Northampton. Now I have developed into a professor in my field and am also co-editor in chief of Fascism: Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies.

What is the Searchlight Archive at the University of Northampton? How do you see this collection contributing to our understanding of extreme right politics and anti-fascism?

When I first started working as a researcher at Northampton, we used to run conferences on the extreme right for academics, practitioners, and activists. This got us connected to Gerry Gable at Searchlight magazine, which was then Britian’s leading antifascist publication. He explained how he had a large quantity of archival material in storage much of it related to the British and American extreme right, which was costing the organization money. We hit on the idea of bringing this to the university and making it an academic archive for the study of the British and international extreme right. There is a vast amount of material, which the organization had been collecting since the 1960s. We were able to appoint an archivist, Daniel Jones, and open the collection for visitors in 2013. We now have about 1,500 archive boxes of material and have been a resource for many UK-based and international researchers working on the history of fascism and the extreme right. What’s unique about it is the ways it offers such a wide range of material, from magazines you may find elsewhere to the ephemeral materials developed by organizations that often is not collected. It is a very unique collection. Today’s extreme right has come from somewhere, it has a history, and this collection allows for a better understanding of that history.

What is the current research project you’re working on? What inspired you to pursue this particular topic?

I am currently working on the relationship between history of emotions approaches and the study of fascism and the extreme right. This whole phenomenon is driven by affect and emotion and understating these aspects of its history is much needed, I think. My work is focused on exploring how forms of fascism develop an emotionology or instruction on how to think and feel and reflecting on why this type of emotionology leads to successes and failures within this space.

How do you believe your research contributes to the existing scholarship and to our broader understanding of the extreme right?

While there is some great and pioneering work out there, often historians have been limited in their engagement with emotions. Whereas researchers such as ethnographers have explored the emotive dynamics of those drawn to the extreme right, historians often focus on other aspects. I think we need to think more about how fascist and wider extreme and far right groups develop variants of an emotionology that can appeal to people experiencing political disengagement, frustration and a sense of overwhelming crisis.

Can you tell us about your source bases? Where are they located? Have they been accessed by scholars in the past? How are you interpreting them?

The materials I use are quite varied. I use a lot of material form the Searchlight Archive, and I find publications by the extreme right particularly interesting items to assess. These are spaces where the communities that far right groups try to develop are given some form of expression. You can explore their activities, how they promote political engagement and also the ideas they adhere to in things like adverts that list books for sale in specialist bookshops. I also use online materials as well and find websites such as the Wayback Machine fascinating for looking at early websites developed by extreme right groups. 

Has your research uncovered anything significant thus far? What have you learned about your topic?

I think that the idea of finding some sort of single archival find or discovery, while interesting, is a little wide of the mark in terms of what I am looking for. One of the things I think is important to consider is the ways the extreme right operates across a wide range of groups and organizations. This is sometimes called the “groupuscular nature” of the extreme right. You can see this historically, with different groups forming, merging into each other and falling apart though personal differences. This messy, networked dynamics is also something that has grown into online spaces as well, and researchers focused on contemporary extreme right dynamics sometimes talk about the ‘post-organizational’ dynamics of the far right. One of my conclusions is that the far right has always been a diverse and complex culture, some more legal than others, some more focused on politics, some more focused on intellectual debate and metapolitics, and some developing ideals that are extremely violent. If you do not get your head around this complexity, then you will not really understand this space, and you will not be able to assess the risks it poses.

Can you briefly share the content of a single document (or other research material) that you feel is particularity meaningful to your project?

One document I looked at recently was editions of the newspaper Action published by Oswald Mosley, specifically in the later 1940s as he was returning to politics after the Second World War. The newspaper is fascinating in capturing some of the reasons he failed to capture the imagination at this time. It idealizes him as a charismatic leader and makes effort to promote him as a man of destiny, but if fails to pick up on the growth of immigration from the wider British Commonwealth to Britian which became definitional to the rise of British extreme right politics by the 1960s. The organization was more focused on rekindling past memories that thinking carefully about how the country was changing and was very nostalgic. Critically assessing these sorts of publications can help us understand the limitations of such politics. Nevertheless, Mosley was an influential figure in this postwar contexts and promoted Holocaust denial themes as well as helped to establish networks of fascist intellectuals, as explored by key historians such as Graham Macklin and Joe Mulhall.

What do you hope to achieve with your research, both within the academic community and in terms of its impact on society as a whole?

We do work at Northampton to engage professionals such as police and charities that tackle hate. With colleagues we have run training courses and other events that connect academic research with real world contexts. I have also worked as an expert witness in cases of neo-Nazi inspired terrorism. I think one thing academics can do that is of benefit is providing core knowledge to such professionals, so they can combine this with their own professional skills and judgement and do more to tackle risks posed by the extreme right.

How do you think future generations of scholars and activists can build on the work you’re doing? What advice do you have for those entering this field?

I think there are lots of ways to approach this topic, and I would call for more people to work on the history of the extreme right, and fascism, since the Second World War, so we can develop a richer understating of how it has developed over generations. Moreover, I think my main piece of advice for people entering this field is to consider the impact working on this topic has on them. Sometimes newer researchers can be quite blaze about the impact of studying content that is predicated on racism, hate and violence. If you use material such as this in your research you should look after your own mental health, others may well not advise you to do so or provide you with the support you need. I suggest this issue needs to be more fully recognized yet is often sidelined. If you are doing a PhD project, speak with your supervisor about this. If you are on a temporary contract at an institution, find out what support they can offer you. If you are a PhD supervisor or responsible for researchers in this field, do speak to your students and researchers about this, and create opportunities to reflect on the impact of working with extremist materials.