Order of Humanity: Studying of 'Trust' and 'Insecurity' in theories of Political Order

Abstract (English)

This paper reconsiders the origins of political order through the intersecting affective axes of trust and insecurity, arguing that the historical consolidation of authority entailed a transformation of trust from a horizontal, communal condition into a vertical monopoly held by the sovereign. Drawing on Thomas Hobbes, Kautilya, and Giorgio Agamben, the paper traces how political theory not only diagnosed the fragility of early human communities but also legitimized the centralization of trust in the figure of the State as a response to pervasive insecurity.

By foregrounding trust as a key anthropological substrate of sociality, the paper challenges dominant narratives that naturalize sovereign authority. Instead, it situates the emergence of order as a contingent appropriation of social trust, raising critical questions about the legitimacy of this monopoly. In doing so, the paper engages the debate on philosophical anarchism, suggesting that the very grounds upon which sovereignty claims necessity may be historically constructed and ethically unstable.

This historico-philosophical inquiry contributes to anthropological theory by unveiling the affective and moral infrastructures that underwrite governance, and by opening space for reimagining forms of political order beyond the sovereign paradigm.