Legitimacy and Fear in Guglielmo Ferrero

Abstract

The article stressed the centrality of fear for political order, arguing that every theory of state, every developed political ideology tend to evade collective consequences of fear. Despite its importance, the problem of fear was neglected in mainstream political theory. The author offers a short genealogy of the
way the problem of fear was addressed in traditional political theory since Thucydides. The focus of analysis is the complex relations between order (government), fear and legitimacy in the works of Guglielmo Ferrero and his disciple Bibó István. In the last part of article, the author makes an attempt to
demonstrate how political dynamic on the Balkans could be refl ected within broader framework of Ferrero’s political theory. He found that Ferrero’s concept
of quasi-legitimacy might be very useful in that analysis.