New Arcana Imperii

The traditional approach to secrecy is differently carved out upon a public perspective, or a private one: according to the former, secrecy looks like a tool of power; according to the latter, it is an instrument of individual warranty. This framework, by and large, turns out to be the western model of admitting secrecy within the legal system. This paper shows how secrecy, instead, does not involve different interests according to the private or the public sphere, neither we can talk about a new version of “reason d’État” nowadays. It, rather, affects at the same time the public use of information as power or control, and the private benefits of playing on individual rights. Therefore secrecy is strictly related to the development of democracy. The hidden decisionmaking always depicts a threat in defining the public sphere, and its rise is sometimes tied to the increase of public power at the expense of individual rights. The conflict stems from the democratic process itself. Democracy, indeed, requires secrecy to protect both individual rights and state prerogatives, but an excessive use of secrecy weakens the strength of the political institutions. This paradox has been traditionally presented as the “breached promise of democracy.” Its drift, in the worst case, lets public powers manage without getting public consent. It means, in other words, to make legal practices not recognizable when public interests are at stake. Secrecy has been here adapted to a few historical patterns that mostly address it to the public/private dichotomy, from the ancient world on. Nonetheless, this is not a historical overview of secrecy, but an attempt to use history for explaining some cultural trends. The overall thesis of the paper is that the traditional idea of the double perspective could be somehow revised. Secrecy does not give up being a propaganda of public powers even though it involves private rights, and even though it enforces private rights. It lays where more power is allocated, as an outcome either of the struggle against power, or of the use of power itself.