ABSTRACT
Authorized force can be law-making violence, when it establishes new systems and designates new ruling elites, but can also be law-conserving violence, when it protects systems and reinforces the power of ruling elites. Both these types of violence are referred as institutional violence. On the other hand, term 'unauthorized force', addressed against the ruling elites, anti-institutional violence. Cesare Beccaria focuses on institutional violence and equates it to cold-blooded atrocity. In the last pages of his celebrated book, however, he does address anti-institutional violence when he shifts from the examination of crimes that undermine the personal security of individuals to those that directly destroy society or its representatives. In conclusion, both institutional and anti-institutional violence are extreme forms of political violence and include what we call 'terrorism', a morally and politically over-charged concept to be used with caution and defined with precision.
