Authoritarianism and the architecture of obedience: From fiduciary–epistemic trusteeship to clientelist betrayal

This paper develops a theory of authoritarianism as an architecture of obedience, integrating classical social psychology with fiduciary–epistemic theory. It argues that obedience is not merely behavioural but epistemic: to obey is to substitute another’s judgment for one’s own, to silence conscience, and to inhabit categories fabricated by authority. Situating Nazi concentration camp guards within this framework, the analysis reframes them not as aberrant sadists but as epistemic subjects shaped by systemic betrayal. The argument advances four contributions. Diagnostic: authoritarianism is analysed as amplified epistemic clientelism, scaling ordinary bargains of dependence into systemic capture. Psychological: cognitive dissonance is reconceptualised as a structural epistemic event, its dual trajectories—collapse or endurance—explaining both routinised complicity and rare acts of bounded freedom. Philosophical: authority is redefined as fiduciary–epistemic trusteeship, distinguished from Raz’s exclusionary model and other procedural accounts by its duties of candour, care, and loyalty. Normative: atrocity prevention is shown to require fiduciary–epistemic scaffolds and, ultimately, an epistemic constitution capable of dignifying dependence, protecting dissonance, and preserving pluralism. Guards thus appear both as enforcers and casualties: participants in atrocity, yet entrapped in an epistemic order that converted trust into betrayal. Their condition exposes authoritarianism as fiduciary breach in nuce, where candour, care, and loyalty collapse into propaganda, coercion, and distortion. By analysing the guard as an epistemic subject, the paper provides a framework for diagnosing past atrocities and for resisting new architectures of obedience, from populist propaganda to algorithmic governance.