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Revision as of 09:19, 7 February 2006
A police state is a totalitarian state regulated by secret police; the police exercise power on behalf of the executive and the conduct of the police cannot be effectively challenged. In such regimes there is no significant distinction between the law and the will of the executive; there is no rule of law.
Under the political model of enlightened despotism, the ruler is the "highest servant of the state". The ruler exercises the absolute power that he enjoys to provide for the general welfare. All of the powers of the state are to be directed toward this end; to constrain the ruler with written law would be bad policy. This view was supported by such thinkers as Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Because the enlightened despot is charged with the public good, opposition to government policy is an offense against authority, and thus against the state itself and all that it represented: the concept of loyal opposition is incompatible within this political framework. Because public dissent is forbidden, dissent is inevitably secret. To police dissent, therefore, requires use of informers and secret police.
Liberal democracy, with its emphasis on the rule of law, focused on the fact that the police state was unrestrained by law. Robert von Mohl, who first introduced the rule of law into German jurisprudence, for example, contrasted the Rechtsstaat ("legal" or "constitutional" state) with the aristocratic Polizeistaat ("police state").
No state ever claims to be a "police state", the term is always applied by critics of the state, based on differing perceptions of legitimate law, human rights and social contract.
Examples of the police state
Historical
- Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Party
- The Soviet Union, especially under Joseph Stalin
- Cambodia under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge
- East Germany during its existence as a Warsaw Pact state from World War II to 1990
- Chile during the right-wing dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet
- Argentina under the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional from 1976 to 1983
- Iran during the neo-liberal military dictatorship of the Shah
- Italy under the corporatist regime of Benito Mussolini
- Spain under the authoritarian nationalist dictatorship of Francisco Franco
- Iraq under the Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein
Contemporary
- The People's Republic of China, especially during the Maoist Period and the Cultural Revolution
- North Korea
- Turkmenistan
- Syria
- Singapore
- Myanmar (Burma)
- Saudi Arabia
- Cuba
- United States of America
Fictional
- The best-known literary treatment of the police state is George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, which describes life under a totalitarian régime that uses the constant presence of eternal war as a pretext for subjecting the people to mass surveillance, constraining both freedom of action and of thought.
- Literature produced another famous description with Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley.
- Another example is the fictional City 17 under The Combine, also known as the Universal Union, in the computer game Half-Life 2.
Response to the war on terror
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In times of war, the usual balance between freedom and security is often temporarily adjusted. A number of governments, including those of Australia, Britain, Russia and the United States of America have responded to the war on terror with legislation to hamper the activities of any potential terrorists.
The Australian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2005 allows for arbitrary constraints on individuals and greatly increases the information gathering ability of the police.
The American Congress, with the support of the Bush administration, has passed a number of laws, including the USA Patriot Act, which have expanded the Executive Branch's ability to monitor and control those within its borders. The Unitary Executive theory, articulated by John Yoo, holds that a 'War President' (that is, a President who governs during a declared state of war), as Commander-in-Chief, is not constrained by law, and that it will be necessary to temporarily set aside some freedoms and rights.
See also
- Dictatorship
- List of dictators
- Military dictatorship
- The Unitary Executive theory in U.S. law, which, as opponents of the Bush administration argue, could be used to justify police-state-like actions in the context of the War on Terrorism.
External links
- Rend Shakir, January 26 2006; RendsWorld.Com — explores the dynamics of a "police state" as it applies to the UK.
- David Mery, September 22 2005; The Guardian — example of "police state" defined in a modern context.
- Alex Jones, February 6 2006; Prison Planet — archive of police state articles compiled by a scholar who contends that The United States of America is now a police state.
- Amnesty international, 2005; — annual report on human rights violations.