Political Labels and the Institutional Reproduction of Belonging

A political label can describe a position, signal belonging, and change the conditions of interaction with an opponent. This article asks when labels such as “fascist,” “Nazi,” and pejorative left-wing or progressive labels cease to function as revisable classifications and become obligations of loyalty reproduced through sanctions. Conceptual analysis, a bounded historical comparison, and a minimal dynamic model connect institutional Extended Phenotype Theory (EPT) and Evolutionary Game Theory (EGT) with research on identity signals, preference falsification, and social learning. The analysis distinguishes the cost of issuing a signal, the cost of withholding it, and the subsequent cost of retracting it. It also distinguishes the acceptability of a political demand, an accusation, and actions against the accused. A further mechanism concerns label-only repetition that closes an exchange while renewing alignment before an audience. Under strategic complementarity and institutional feedback, the model admits locally stable states with either low or high reproduction of an evidence-independent labeling rule. Italy between 1919 and 1925 supplies a historical contrast that prevents identifying either mobilization or the defense of public order with fascism in itself. The contribution is a theoretical mechanism and a research design. No new empirical data are presented, and the proposed mechanism is not claimed to have been demonstrated in a contemporary political population.