ABSTRACT
Edward Shils was a Jewish-American sociologist who, after studying and translating the classics of sociology such as Max Weber and Mannheim, embraced Parson's structural-functionalist analytical approach of social action. His contribution to the study of populism is expressed in the book The Torment of Secrecy, a research into the relationship between public opinion, conspiracy theories and the US political system during the Cold War period. Shils' analysis started from macro structural changes, especially those taking place in the institutional sphere and in public opinion, and the respective reactions by citizens. According to Shils, for a liberal democratic system to function properly, there must be a balanced relationship between privacy, secrecy and publicity, something that, for example, could not happen in the authoritarian Soviet regimes. In Shils' axiological consideration, pluralism was the result of a healthy balance between publicity, privacy and the need for secrecy, which would not generate fear and merely meet the normal needs of the state.
