Uploaded November 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
Coercive Force
“The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But we don’t ask for their love; only for their fear.” - Heinrich Himmler
Secret police
The term secret police (or political police) refers to police agencies that are involved in covert actions against political enemies of the state. The Gestapo, KGB and Stasi are names that have attained an emblematic notoriety of authoritarianism and also are the most obvious examples of prerogative state power. The secret police is literally a law unto itself. Real or imagined opponents can be abducted (preventative arrest), indefinitely detained, tortured and murdered without any real ‘crimes’ having been committed and without any due legal process being followed.
Surveillance
Why is privacy so important? Privacy is essential to freedom. If you know you are being watched, you modify your behaviour. If you modify your behaviour, you are not acting freely. If your acts are not free, you are under control. Privacy is not the same thing as secrecy. Secrecy implies having something to hide; whereas privacy is about the right to be alone, unobserved, anonymous. But in an authoritarian state, privacy and secrecy are treated the same way. Although the secret police (or other designated agencies) of the prerogative state might be responsible for organising or collating private information on individuals, the authoritarian state relies extensively on the willingness of citizens to watch and report on each other
Punishment
When we think of punishment in authoritarian regimes, we think of concentration camps in Germany, the Gulag in the USSR and the Chinese Laogai. And yet, authoritarian regimes do not in general punish their citizens more than democracies. What makes authoritarian punishment different is not how many, but rather who is punished and how. As we have seen above, people can be punished in authoritarian regimes without having broken any normative laws. The existence of political prisoners, those who have been identified as a threat to the state, are a distinctive feature of authoritarian regimes. In a democracy, the punished continue to enjoy basic human rights, which broadly means they should be treated humanely. This is certainly not the case in most authoritarian states where forced hard labour, humiliation, corporal punishment and torture can become everyday experiences.
Coercive Force
“The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But we don’t ask for their love; only for their fear.” - Heinrich Himmler
Secret police
The term secret police (or political police) refers to police agencies that are involved in covert actions against political enemies of the state. The Gestapo, KGB and Stasi are names that have attained an emblematic notoriety of authoritarianism and also are the most obvious examples of prerogative state power. The secret police is literally a law unto itself. Real or imagined opponents can be abducted (preventative arrest), indefinitely detained, tortured and murdered without any real ‘crimes’ having been committed and without any due legal process being followed.
Surveillance
Why is privacy so important? Privacy is essential to freedom. If you know you are being watched, you modify your behaviour. If you modify your behaviour, you are not acting freely. If your acts are not free, you are under control. Privacy is not the same thing as secrecy. Secrecy implies having something to hide; whereas privacy is about the right to be alone, unobserved, anonymous. But in an authoritarian state, privacy and secrecy are treated the same way. Although the secret police (or other designated agencies) of the prerogative state might be responsible for organising or collating private information on individuals, the authoritarian state relies extensively on the willingness of citizens to watch and report on each other
Punishment
When we think of punishment in authoritarian regimes, we think of concentration camps in Germany, the Gulag in the USSR and the Chinese Laogai. And yet, authoritarian regimes do not in general punish their citizens more than democracies. What makes authoritarian punishment different is not how many, but rather who is punished and how. As we have seen above, people can be punished in authoritarian regimes without having broken any normative laws. The existence of political prisoners, those who have been identified as a threat to the state, are a distinctive feature of authoritarian regimes. In a democracy, the punished continue to enjoy basic human rights, which broadly means they should be treated humanely. This is certainly not the case in most authoritarian states where forced hard labour, humiliation, corporal punishment and torture can become everyday experiences.
