State terror

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In terms of the philosophy of the state , state terror describes the targeted use of the citizens' fear of the state monopoly of force as a means of coercion by the state to force its citizens to comply with the law. State terrorism should not be confused with the more recent concept of state terrorism .

State terror after Hobbes

The concept of the liberalism of contractualism was most prominently coined by Thomas Hobbes in his state-theoretical work Leviathan from 1651. For Hobbes, terror gave the state the necessary and legal means of coercion to establish its constitution (terror of legal punishment) . Hobbes' assessments range from the statement that he had "anticipated the logic of the totalitarian regime (...) with the terror of legal punishment and his contractualism", to the opinion that Hobbes had "on the contrary, an initial justification required for the liberal (...) state. "

Modern conceptions

Police state

More generally, forms of police state are also referred to as state terror that have no constitutional basis or whose constitutional basis is questioned.

In many state crisis situations, the establishment of a state of emergency serves the state to legitimize means of coercion, which are commonly condemned as terrorist .

Totalitarianism and terror

State terror is the most important constituent element of totalitarian states. It means the no longer predictable use of physical violence as a permanent threat to everyone. State terror is held up against numerous states by theorists of totalitarianism of the 20th century.

Against the background of experiences with the terror of National Socialism , which can no longer be grasped with the term state terror, and the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, the basic assumptions of modernity and its concepts such as totality , biopolitics , governmentality are critically discussed. According to Hannah Arendt , terror was the most important characteristic of National Socialist and Stalinist total rule in the 20th century .

Historical examples

French Republic

Terror for the purpose of maintaining the state was accused both of the monarchy, here on the part of the Enlightenment , and of the revolutionaries .

Russian Empire and Soviet Union

On the side of tsarist or later bourgeois Russia, state power organized itself in the form of White Terror . When the October Revolution was established, the Red Terror was seen as an antidote to the counter-revolution and was intended to serve the constitution of the Soviet Union. The Stalinism is regarded as a modern, totalitarian form of state terror. The Great Terror should also be mentioned in this context .

German Empire

Reinhard Bernbeck sees “the Nazi state as an exemplary example” of state terror. In addition to intimidation and the evocation of fear through arbitrary measures up to physical violence, the unpredictability of state measures up to life threatening seems central to him. A state terror apparatus could strike anytime and anywhere. The Nazi era is also a historically significant exception to terrorism by state institutions and groups, as the majority of the “ national community ” supported the regime.

literature

Hobbes

  • Thomas Hobbes : Leviathan. Frankfurt am Main 1998, especially pp. 96-98 (Chapter 30). - In the English original: Of the Office of the Sovereign Representative
  • Leo Strauss : Hobbes' political science and related writings - letters (= collected writings. Volume 3). Edited by Heinrich and Wiebke Meier. JB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2001.
  • Thomas Schneider: Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. On the logic of the political body. zu Klampen, Springe 2003.
  • Dieter Hüning (Ed.): The long shadow of the Leviathan. Hobbes' political philosophy after 350 years. Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 2005.
  • Jürgen Hartmann : Hobbes, Thomas (...) Leviathan or matter, form and shape of an ecclesiastical and civil state. In: Lexicon of sociological works. Westermann, Wiesbaden 2001, p. 295.

Public law and philosophical literature (state terror, state of emergency)

Term used in connection with armed conflicts and questions

References and comments

  1. ↑ Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan. Frankfurt am Main 1998, especially pp. 96-98. - In the original English: Chapter XXX: Of the Office of the Sovereign Representative. See Peter Schröder. In: Dieter Hüning (Ed.): The long shadow of the Leviathan. Hobbes' political philosophy after 350 years. Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 2005, especially pp. 189f .; Thomas Schneider: Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. On the logic of the political body. zu Klampen, Springe 2003, p. 137. Ingo Elbe in Der Leviathan for the 21st Century on this: "Schneider speaks (...) of the 'power of the state which, as propaganda, encompasses consciousness and, as terror, affects people's emotions' ( 137). The entire system of Hobbes' philosophy amounts to the construct of the individuals only integrated through the horror of the state. ” (PDF; 146 kB).
  2. ↑ Jürgen Hartmann: Hobbes, Thomas (...) Leviathan or substance, form and shape of an ecclesiastical and bourgeois state . In: Lexicon of sociological works. Westermann Verlag. Wiesbaden 2001. p. 295.
  3. ↑ A police state without the rule of law is state terror. Bernhard Zangl and Michael Zürn (1999): World Police or World Intervention Court? To civilize conflict management. In IP Internationale Politik 54 (8) 1999 edition ISSN 1430-175X ; See also Zangl, Bernhard and Michael Zürn 2003: Peace and War. Security in the national and post-national constellation, Frankfurt / Main.  
  4. ↑ Cf. Carl Schmitt : "Order must be established so that the legal order has meaning." ( Politische Theologie , p. 19).
  5. ↑ Cf. in German history: Jesuit Law of 1872 and the Socialist Law of 1878; Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution; Enabling Act “Law to Eliminate the Need of the People and the Empire”; Emergency Act .
  6. ^ Franz Neumann : Notes on the dictatorship. In: Franz Neumann: Democratic and authoritarian state. Political Theory Studies. Frankfurt am Main 1967, p. 236.
  7. ↑ Cf. in particular Zygmunt Bauman : Dialectic of Order
  8. ↑ a b cf. Hannah Arendt (1955): Elements and origins of total rule
  9. ↑ See especially the literature in Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben .
  10. ↑ Reinhard Bernbeck: Terror from above: the Nazi era and archaeological memory. A search for traces on the Tempelhofer Feld. In Sozialmagazin 5–6 2018, pp. 47–56, available online at academia.edu