Police state

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with State police.
For other uses, see Police state (disambiguation).

A police state describes a

dominant-party states, but police-state-level control may emerge in multi-party systems
as well.

Originally, a police state was a state regulated by a

constitutional state.[2] Robert von Mohl, who first introduced the rule of law to German jurisprudence, contrasted the Rechtsstaat ("legal" or "constitutional" state) with the anti-aristocratic Polizeistaat ("police state").[3]

History of usage

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the phrase "police state" back to 1851, when it was used in reference to the use of a national police force to maintain order in the Austrian Empire.[4] The German term Polizeistaat came into English usage in the 1930s with reference to totalitarian governments that had begun to emerge in Europe.[5]

Because there are different political perspectives as to what an appropriate balance is between individual freedom and national security, there are no objective standards defining a police state.[

free state.[6]

An

electronic police state is one in which the government aggressively uses electronic technologies to record, organize, search and distribute forensic evidence against its citizens.[7][8]

Demonstration in Amsterdam against the police state (politiestaat) in Portuguese Angola
"No to police state" banner in Ukraine

Early forms of police states can be found in ancient China. During the rule of King Li of Zhou in the 9th century BC, there was strict censorship, extensive state surveillance, and frequent executions of those who were perceived to be speaking against the regime. During this reign of terror, ordinary people did not dare to speak to each other on the street, and only made eye contacts with friends as a greeting, hence known as '道路以目'. During the 4th century BC, the state of Qin introduced a registration system for its population, which initially collated the names of individuals, and later began keeping track of entire households.[9] Adapting a concept originally used within the military to society at-large, Qin households were organised into 'groups of five' (五; wǔ), wherein the heads of each household were made mutually responsible for reporting any wrongdoing committed by other members of the group.[10]

Some have characterised the rule of

King Henry VIII during the Tudor period as a police state.[11][12] The Oprichnina established by Tsar Ivan IV within the Russian Tsardom in 1565 functioned as a predecessor to the modern police state, featuring persecutions and autocratic rule.[13][14]

Nazi Germany emerged from an originally democratic government, yet gradually exerted more and more repressive controls over its people in the lead-up to World War II. In addition to the SS and the Gestapo, the Nazi police state used the judiciary to assert control over the population from the 1930s until the end of the war in 1945.[15]

During the period of apartheid, South Africa maintained police-state attributes such as banning people and organizations, arresting political prisoners, maintaining segregated living communities and restricting movement and access.[16]

Chile operated as a police state,[17] exhibiting "repression of public liberties, the elimination of political exchange, limiting freedom of speech, abolishing the right to strike, freezing wages".[18]

The Republic of Cuba under President (and later right-wing dictator) Fulgencio Batista was an authoritarian police state until his overthrow during the Cuban Revolution in 1959 with the rise to power of Fidel Castro and foundation of a Marxist-Leninist republic.[19][20][21][22]

General Hafez al-Assad constructed a coup-proof police state in Ba'athist Syria to consolidate his dictatorship during the 1970s

Following the failed

Tonton Macoutes, a paramilitary force unit whom he authorized to commit systematic violence and human rights abuses to suppress political opposition, including an unknown number of murders, public executions, rapes, disappearances of and attacks on dissidents; an unrestrained state terrorism. In the 1964 Haitian constitutional referendum, he declared himself the president for life through a sham election. After Duvalier's death in 1971, his son Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) succeeded him as the next president for life, continuing the regime until the popular uprising that had him overthrown in February 1986.[citation needed
]

Assad family. The dreaded Mukhabarat was given free hand to terrorise, torture or murder non-compliant civilians, while public activities of any organized opposition was curbed down with the raw firepower of the army. Bashar and his family were overthrown in December 2024 during the Syrian Revolution with the Fall of the Assad regime and the Fall of Damascus which had forced Bashar to leave Syria for Russia and its capital Moscow for a political asylum.[23][24]

The region of modern-day

Press Freedom Index's introduction, stating that the ruling Kim family control all of the media.[27][28]

In response to government proposals to enact new security measures to curb protests, the

better source needed] leading to accusations that it has effectively become a "revolutionary police state".[31][32]

The USSR was a police state.[33] Notable secret police forces in the former USSR were the Cheka, the NKVD, and the KGB. Tools of state control used by the Soviet Union include censorship, forced labour under the Gulag system of labour camps,[34] and deportation and genocide of ethnic minorities such as in the Holodomor, NKVD Order No. 00485 against the Poles and De-Cossackization.[35] Modern-day Russia[36][37] and Belarus are often described as police states.[38][39]

The dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos from the 1970s to early 1980s in the Philippines had many characteristics of a police state.[40][41]

Hong Kong is perceived by some human rights organizations and press to have implemented the tools of a police state after passing the

National Security legislation in 2020, following repeated attempts by People's Republic of China to erode the rule of law in the former British colony.[42][43][44][45][46]

The

ICE detentions.[47]

Fictional police states

Main article: List of fictional police states

Fictional police states have featured in media ranging from novels to films to video games.

Oceanian regime that continuously invokes (and helps to cause) a perpetual war. This perpetual war is used as a pretext for subjecting the people to mass surveillance and invasive police searches. This novel was described by The Encyclopedia of Police Science as "the definitive fictional treatment of a police state, which has also influenced contemporary usage of the term".[48]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 9781780939742
    . Retrieved 5 September 2014.
  2. ^ A Dictionary of World History, Market House Books, Oxford University Press, 2000.
  3. ^ The Police State, Chapman, B., Government and Opposition, Vol.3:4, 428–440, (2007). Accessible online at [1], retrieved 15 August 2008.
  4. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, Third edition, January 2009; online version November 2010. [2]; accessed 19 January 2011. [dead link]
  5. ISBN 978-0-8047-5392-0
    .
  6. ^ Police State (Key Concepts in Political Science), Brian Chapman, Macmillan, 1971.
  7. ISSN 1066-632X
    , "The so-called 'electronic frontier' is quickly turning into an electronic police state."
  8. ^ The Electronic Police State: 2008 National Rankings, by Jonathan Logan, Cryptohippie USA.
  9. ^ Sanft 2014, pp. 127–128.
  10. ^ Barbieri-Low & Yates 2015, pp. 111–112; Sanft 2014, pp. 127–129.
  11. ^ "Henry VIII: Henry the horrible". The Independent. 12 October 2003.
  12. ^ "Human truth in the Tudor police state". Financial Times. 28 September 2006.
  13. ISBN 9780887068331
    . Retrieved 20 August 2016. Oprichnina was originally a band of faithful servants organized by Ivan IV into a police force; they were used by the tsar to crush not only all boyars (Russian nobility) under suspicion, but also the Russian princes [...]. Oprichnina enabled the tsars to build the first police state in modem history.
  14. ^ Wilson, Colin (1964). Rasputin and the Fall of the Romanovs. New York, Farrar, Straus. p. 60. Retrieved 20 August 2016. [Ivan IV] established a political security force to run the Oprichina[sic], whose task was to spy on his enemies and destroy them; hence Ivan may be regarded as the inventor of the police state.
  15. ^ "SS Police State". U.S. Holocaust Museum. Retrieved 22 March 2014.
  16. ISBN 9780521776004
    . Retrieved 22 March 2014.
  17. ISBN 9781107026872
    . Retrieved 22 March 2014.
  18. ISBN 9789280808193
    . Retrieved 22 March 2014.
  19. ISBN 9780313332104
    . Retrieved 27 March 2014.
  20. ISBN 9780395133736
    . Retrieved 27 March 2014.
  21. ISBN 9781101213537
    . Retrieved 27 March 2014.
  22. ^ Paul H. Lewis. Authoritarian regimes in Latin America.
  23. ISBN 9781471129827
    .
  24. ^ "RSF". RSF: Reporters Without Borders. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
  25. ^
    ISBN 9780198038108
    . Retrieved 22 March 2014.
  26. ISBN 9780300150131
    . Retrieved 22 March 2014.
  27. ^ "North Korea Rated World's Worst Violator of Press Freedom". U.S. Department of State. 25 October 2006. Archived from the original on 22 March 2014. Retrieved 23 July 2008.
  28. ^ "North Korea still one of the world's most repressive media environments". Archived from the original on 25 September 2013.
  29. ^ "Critics: Proposed Legislation Turns Turkey Into Police State". VOA. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
  30. ^ "Egypt: The politics of reforming al-Azhar".
  31. ^ Khorshid, Sara (16 November 2014). "Egypt's New Police State". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
  32. ^ "Egypt: The Revolutionary Police State". Politico. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
  33. ^ "Chapter 12: The Soviet Union and the Cold War – Western Civilization: A Concise History". pressbooks.nscc.ca. 28 December 2024. Archived from the original on 28 December 2024. Retrieved 23 April 2025.
  34. ISBN 0767900561
  35. ^ "Revelations from the Russian Archives" Library of Congress, 1997
  36. ISBN 9781107054172
    .
  37. ^ "Russia's police state showed its real face in latest protest crackdown". New Eastern Europe - A bimonthly news magazine dedicated to Central and Eastern European affairs. 11 April 2021.
  38. ^ "Belarus: a police state in action". OSW Centre for Eastern Studies. 16 November 2020.
  39. ^ Higgins, Andrew; Santora, Marc (16 November 2021). "Cold and Marooned in a Police State as Desperation Takes Hold". The New York Times.
  40. ^ "Marcos Orders Crackdown On Critics of Martial Law - The Washington Post". The Washington Post. 8 April 1978. Archived from the original on 14 June 2020.
  41. ^ Karnow, Stanley (19 March 1989). "REAGAN AND THE PHILIPPINES: Setting Marcos Adrift". The New York Times.
  42. ^ Vines, Stephen (3 July 2021). "What's wrong with Hong Kong becoming a police state?". Hong Kong Free Press HKFP. Retrieved 2 June 2022.
  43. ^ Welle (www.dw.com), Deutsche. "Amnesty: Hong Kong on course to becoming 'police state' | DW | 30.06.2021". DW.COM. Retrieved 2 June 2022.
  44. ISSN 0307-1235
    . Retrieved 2 June 2022.
  45. ^ "Opinion: Make no mistake – this new security law turns Hong Kong into a Chinese police state". The Independent. 1 July 2020. Retrieved 2 June 2022.
  46. ^ "Hong Kong's New Police State". thediplomat.com. Retrieved 2 June 2022.
  47. ISSN 0362-4331
    .
  48. ISBN 978-0-415-97000-6
    .

Works cited
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