As a European, the recent elections have shown that there are many political parties with fascist tendencies growing at the moment. In many countries this influx of nationalist ideas are fairly new. With Italy as an exception. Why has fascism been a constant in the italian political landscape?
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Be careful describing Francoist Spain as 'fascist.' The Falange--the Spanish fascist party--got less than 0.01% of the vote in the 1936 election that preceded the Spanish Civil War. That's less than 7,000 votes. There were facist aspects of Franco's regime: Falange membership swelled after the outbreak of hostilities the Falange was incorporated into Franco's 'movement,' and both Germany and Italy provided men and equipment to the Nationalists during the war. However, Franco was never a committed fascist. Like every other group he subsumed to his own cause (the Nationalists, the Army, the Catholic Church, industrialists, large landowners, the middle class, the Alfonsists, and the Carlists), he used the Falange to further his real program: himself. Everything else came a distant third.
So, I can't speak to why nations have had varying amounts of fascists at various times, but one must be careful in attributing that label to Franco's regime.