Terror Regime is a term used in political science and political philosophy to describe a form of government that maintains control through systematic violence, intimidation, and fear, often targeting innocent civilians on a large scale. The concept is most prominently associated with the political philosopher Hannah Arendt, who analyzed it in the context of totalitarian systems.
Definition and Core Characteristics
According to the Encyclopedia of Power (Sage, 2011), the essence of a terror regime lies in summary justice—a system in which the innocent as well as the guilty are victims. In terror regimes, the deaths of innocent victims, chosen on the basis of characteristics that no change in behavior can alter, occur on a large scale. This distinguishes terror regimes from other forms of authoritarian rule, where guilt and innocence retain some meaning.
Arendt argued that rather than being the epitome of power expressed as naked violence, a terror regime constitutes a form of government in which power is totally absent, destroyed by violence, and replaced by a terror system concealed behind a state façade of seemingly normal structures and processes.
Arendt's Framework
Arendt's principal focus was on Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Stalin, both of which she classified as totalitarian regimes. She identified the onset of totalitarianism as occurring in Germany in 1938 and in the USSR in 1930. She considered Mussolini's Italy to have been a totalitarian dictatorship rather than a terror regime in the strict sense, because the government ruled through the state rather than through a parallel system of party organization, and because innocents were not deliberately targeted as victims.
At the center of totalitarian terror regimes are terror systems with concentration camps and labor camps run by the secret police. The state has ostensible, not real, power; characterized by lawlessness, it is shapelessly organized through multiple offices duplicating functions and even "fake departments," which conceal the operations of the terror system. In the Soviet Union, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) ran the system of terror; in Germany, it was run by the Schutzstaffel (SS).
Historical Examples
The Encyclopedia of Power identifies Nazi Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union, and Cambodia under Pol Pot as terror regimes in their extreme form. Cambodia during the "zero years" (April 1975 to January 1979) saw hundreds of thousands of deaths, with estimates ranging from 400,000 to 1.671 million. The state was a façade: apart from the Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea of January 1976, the Khmer Rouge issued neither laws nor decrees. At the crux of the regime was Tuol Sleng, the main center for interrogation, torture, and execution in Phnom Penh, where records showed that of the 14,499 people held there between April 1975 and the end of 1978, only four survived.
Revolutionary Reigns of Terror
There is another type of terror regime in which the system of terror is less entrenched: the revolutionary reign of terror. In such regimes, revolutionary tribunals or courts are hurriedly assembled to try crimes that violate broadly drawn laws against counterrevolutionary acts. Victims may be executed on the spot without trial, but even when trials are held, summary justice is at work—the accused do not have the right to defense or appeal, and the outcome (execution or imprisonment) is certain irrespective of innocence or guilt.
Etymology
The word "terror" originates from the Latin terrere, meaning "to frighten" or "to scare." The word "regime" comes from the French régime, meaning "system" or "government," which in turn derives from the Latin regimen, meaning "to guide or govern." Combined, the phrase underscores a method of governance characterized by instilling fear.
Related Concepts
Terror regimes are distinct from, though related to, concepts such as authoritarianism, despotism, totalitarianism, and police states. Because of the concealment inherent to terror regimes, they are often clearly identified only after their fall.
