Legally sanctioned state violence against subordinate groups is widespread globally

Evidence

Official terror is the public and legally sanctioned violence and threat of violence perpetrated by organs of the state and disproportionately directed toward members of subordinate groups. The most contemporary examples of official terror are the disproportionate use of the death penalty against subordinates in nations such as apartheid South Africa and the United States, and the acts of collective punishment used against the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank by Israel. Rather than being a relatively uncommon occurrence in the modern world, the evidence suggests that official terror is quite widespread. For example, in a 1997 study of 151 countries, Amnesty International reported general, comprehensive, and widespread state violence against ethnic and racial minorities in the form of mass arrests, trials without due process of law, extended detention without trial, beatings, and the torture of children in front of their parents, etc. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3198

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces and defines ‘official terror’ as a formal concept.
• XREF: Connects to Milgrom’s work on institutions — here law itself functions as the institution enforcing hierarchy, complementing how private legal regimes structure markets. — connects to: State violence against racialized populations recurs across centuries and continents — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 22
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3198