ABSTRACT
The theoretical analysis developed is placed at a specific level of generality, both in terms of sociocultural contexts and of historical epoch. Most of the theoretical and interpretive contrasts concerning authoritarianism, as well as other social and political phenomena, derive from the use of theoretical frameworks whose validity is limited to particular sociohistorical areas. The whole analysis is based on the assumption of the specificity of modern authoritarianism, which at a level of wider generality is considered different from nonmodern authoritarianism. The minimum requirement for the rise and development of modern society is the extension of secularization to three areas: knowledge, technology, and the economy. The notion of secularization enables us to distinguish between traditional and modern authoritarianism. In the different areas of activity, or in the subsystems, in which the prescriptive kind of action prevails, human behavior will follow internalized models for which alternative or different answers are "unthinkable."
