nts or opposition or a distinct group of people, this implication is already a basis of terror, and as noticed, it can be found generally characteristic for a certain type of regime – tyrannical or otherwise highly illegitimate regime that can henceforth be called a ‘terror regime’. The general pattern of the political behaviour of such a regime can be described as ‘terrorism’. In an objective view, it should make no difference, whether the regime is ruling an internationally recognised nation-state, an empire, or a separatist republic.There are many various ways, in which both a regime of a state and an interest group within a state may proceed in order to defend their existence – their liberty as the theorists of the late Medieval and Renaissance Italy preferred to say – or in order to destroy an opponent polity’s liberty, and ultimately the existence of a rival polity. A classic, describing the variety of these means, is of course Niccol Machiavelli.We might distinguish the polities practising the full variety of Machiavellian methods for fulfilling their ends, whatever they were, in terms of whether the polity in question is an aggressor or a defender, a conqueror or a victim of conquest. But as this particular lecture aims at referring to the notorious but often also highly misunderstood "cynical" character of Machiavelli’s analysis, I want to concentrate in the means, not in the legitimacy of the polities, or in the question of whether their goal is genesis, restoration, defence, or destruction of a polity’s existence and liberty.The means, namely, ultimately reveal many relevant features of a polity’s character: whether its power is built upon legitimacy and liberty, or upon coercion and terror. Those admirers of Machiavelli, who read his works in a selective way, or out of their historical context, tend to overemphasise the cynical character in the thinking of Mac...
