The promotion of performance measurement and international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) is often explained in terms of the rise and expansion of the neoliberal thought collective; in other words, testing constitutes a core component of neoliberal education reform. A less well-known feature of the neoliberal regime is its numerous precursors and antecedents in the 19th and 20th centuries. This article provides a study of such historical precursors in the treatment of children seen as ‘mentally defective’ in two emerging welfare states, namely Denmark in the interwar period and England in the immediate post-war era. Based on the records of municipal educational psychology offices in Denmark and the Birmingham Special Schools After-Care Subcommittee respectively, we argue that IQ testing and other metrics were integral to efforts at universalising treatments in the fledgling welfare states; but that the nature of such testing, numbers, and metrics components left them open to being gamed by various involved actors, meaning that the very instruments which were implemented to underpin the ideal of the universalistic welfare state to a certain extent worked to undermine it. In a similar fashion, the contemporary neoliberal education regime might face challenges from the metrics so intrinsic to its modus operandi.

The workshop aims at deepening our understanding of practices and notions of fascist internationalism and internationalism in all kinds of fields of research. We want to bring together early-career researchers working on the different layers including political, economic, cultural, gender, religious, leisure and potential other aspects. Whereas most research so far has focused on the European dimensions of fascist transnationalism, we would like to include global perspectives as well.

Despite the extreme nationalist character of fascism, research in fascism studies in the last decade has foregrounded the transnational and international dimensions of fascist regimes, movements and individuals in the interwar period and the Second World War. In this workshop, early career researchers came together to discuss the different layers of practices and notions of this phenomenon summarized as fascist internationalism. Concrete case studies of fascist international cooperation were discussed in fields such as philology, racial science, colonialism, international relations, social policy, parties and women’s organizations. The workshop aimed to shed light on the omnipresent tension between fascist nationalist outlook and international endeavours, to foreground the role of individual agents, to ask how fascist internationalism was organized and which notions were essential.

In our contribution, we explore the Czech-speaking discourse related to Georg Brandes in the Bohemian Lands in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century, which means before and shortly after Czechs gained their independence from Austria-Hungary in 1918. Our research of archival sources, especially periodicals and private letters, enables us to confidently claim that the impact of Brandes's criticism on the Czech arts was rather insignificant. At the same time, the sources give a clear picture that the Czech-speaking intelligentsia were interested in using Brandes's symbolic capital to promote their struggle for Czech cultural autonomy. Thus, it was not Brandes's works that can be considered influential in the Czech context but his persona. This strategy of using Brandes's symbolic capital mirrors his own efforts to be viewed as an international intermediary. Finally, we explore the East-West dynamics in Brandes's relationship with Czechs and vice versa, and here, we identify a considerable asymmetry.

One of the most prominent, visible throughout a wide variety of contemporary sources, and geographically widespread phenomena in the eighteenth century was the rise of societies aimed at improving the economic basis of European states. These societies called themselves improving societies, patriotic societies, agricultural societies and economic societies, among other labels that were used. Not only semantically did these institutions differ, their characters, self-declared missions and attributed functions were shaped by local and national political and social-economic history. Given this variety, how and why would one attempt to treat these economic societies in a unified way? A direct reason for doing so lies in restoring historical accuracy. So far economic societies have been studied almost exclusively from nationally delineated perspectives, but this is not quite how their functions were perceived at the time. The writings and activities by the most celebrated figures in the international network that connected such societies like Arthur Young-who became an honorary member of a number of economic societies, from St. Petersburg to Philadelphia and Stockholm to Florence-provide a fascinating insight. Young was himself a practicing experimental