Between Scylla and Charybdis: Technocratic and Populist Fears compressing Liberal Democracies

The chapter deals with the use of fear made by technocracies and populisms (in particular right-wing populist parties) in post-crisis Europe (2013-2018), and the way it contributed to the crisis of Liberal Democracy, with Institutions in need of popular legitimacy and liberal constitutionalism requiring technocratic elements to function, highlighting an "elected-unelected" unavoidable tension. Using the mythological narration of Scylla and Charybdis as a metaphor, the chapter builds upon the theoretical framework of complexity, and its connection with legitimacy, to explain the role of fear and the mutual implications between the actions of Technocracy and Populism. The central argument of this paper is that Technocracies and Populisms, as showed in Italy, take advantage of trivialization and the mis-use of complexity respectively, to implement a successful strategy based on evoking fears. In turn, these fears have profound implications, in undermining the stability of democratic societies, as demonstrated by the recent political crisis in Italy (2018).