Deep state
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A state within a state or a deep state is a political situation in a country when an internal organ ("deep state"), such as the armed forces or public authorities (intelligence agencies, police, secret police, administrative agencies, and branches of government bureaucracy), does not respond to the civilian political leadership. Although the state within a state can be conspiratorial in nature, the deep state can also take the form of entrenched unelected career civil servants acting in a non-conspiratorial manner, to further their own interests (e.g. continuity of the state as distinct from the administration, job security, enhanced power and authority, pursuit of ideological goals and objectives, and the general growth of their agency) and in opposition to the policies of elected officials, by obstructing, resisting, and subverting the policies, conditions and directives of elected officials. The term, like many in politics, derives from the Greek language (κράτος εν κράτει, kratos en kratei, later adopted into Latin as imperium in imperio or status in statu).
Sometimes, the term refers to state companies that, though formally under the command of the government, act 'de facto' like private corporations. Sometimes, the term refers to companies that, though formally private, act de facto like "states within a state".
Political debate surrounding the separation of church and state previously revolved around the perception that if left unchecked, the Church might turn into a kind of State within a State, an illegitimate outgrowth of the State's natural civil power.
In the field of political science, this pop culture concept is studied within the literature on the state. The modern literature on the state is generally tied back to Bringing the State Back In(1985) and remains an active body of scholarly research to this day. Within this literature, the state is understood as both venue (a set of rules under which others act and interact) as well as actor (with its own agenda). Under this dual understanding, the conspiratorial version of the deep state concept would be one version of the 'state as actor' while the non-conspiratorial version would be another version of the 'state as venue.'
See also
- Cabal
- Civilian control of the military
- Counterintelligence state
- The Establishment
- Fifth column
- Illiberal democracy
- Khakistocracy
- List of conspiracy theories
- Military coup
- Military dictatorship
- Monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force
- Power behind the throne
- Proto-state
- Puppet government
- Shadow government (conspiracy)
- Smoke-filled room
