Understanding 21st-Century Militant Anti-Fascism

By Nigel Copsey and Samuel Merrill

Anti-fascist militancy has existed for as long as fascism has, but militant anti-fascism is still largely neglected across both academic and policy-practitioner communities. A far more robust, evidence-based understanding is now needed, especially in a context where militant anti-fascist protest in the United States has been conflated with ‘domestic terrorism’.

The militant anti-fascist movement, or Antifa, is a de-centralised, non-hierarchical social movement. It is loosely structured on dispersed networks of local groups. It has a distinctly anti-authoritarian orientation, consisting, for the most part, of anarchists; anarcho-communists; left-libertarians; and radical socialists. The movement is transnational, but it responds in local conditions.

This report presents evidence from six local case studies: three from the United States: Portland, New York City, Philadelphia; and three from Britain: Brighton, Liverpool, London. It adopts a multi-method approach, combining interviews with anti-fascist activists drawn from these six localities as well as analysis of digital platforms used by local militant anti-fascist groups (Rose City Antifa; NYC Antifa; Philly Antifa; Brighton Antifascists; Merseyside Anti-Fascist Network; and London Antifascists).

Lancaster, UK: Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST), 2021. 90p.