Abstract

The concept of totalitarianism, created as a polemical tool with strong evaluative connotations, has been imported into the social sciences to describe the tendency to concentration of powers and mingling of public and private realms that characterized the one-party regimes which emerged in Europe between the two world wars. On the contents and the field of application of this notion a long politological debate arose, which saw vindicators of an essentialist, philosophical interpretation and supporters of an empiricist, descriptive approach. This essay briefly summarizes this discussion which seems to have come to an end.