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A government does not describe itself as a "police state". Instead, it is a description assigned to a Regime by internal or external critics in response to the laws, policies and actions of that regime, and is often used pejoratively to describe the regime's stance on Human Rights , the Social Contract and similar matters. AUTHORITARIANISM Police states tend to be authoritarian, often dictatorships, though the South African Apartheid system was also seen as a police state despite it being notionally democratic (albeit with the majority of the population excluded from the democratic process). Nazi Germany was also a police state, with civil disobedience handled by the Gestapo (''Geheime Staatspolizei'', Secret Police). Enlightened absolutism Under the political model of Enlightened Despotism , the ruler is the "highest servant of the state" and exercises absolute power so as to provide for the general welfare of the population. This model proposes that all of the powers of the state must be directed toward this end, and does not accept any codified or statutory constraints upon the ruler’s absolute power. This view was supported by such thinkers as Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau . As the enlightened despot is said to be charged with the public good, opposition to government policy is deemed to be an offense against the authority of the state and all it represents. The concept of Loyal Opposition is incompatible within this political framework. As public Dissent is forbidden, it inevitably becomes secret, which is met in turn forms of Political Repression such as the use of secret police. Liberal Democracy , with its emphasis on the rule of law, focuses on the fact that the police state is unrestrained by law. Robert Von Mohl , who first introduced the rule of law into German Jurisprudence , for example, contrasted the '' Rechtsstaat '' ("legal" or "constitutional" state) with the Aristocratic ''Polizeistaat'' ("police state"). IDIOMATIC EXPANSION OF THE TERM In times of National Emergency or War , the balance which may usually exist between the Freedom of individuals and National Security in an otherwise well-regulated state often tips in favour of the state. Occasionally Polemicists will claim that the nation in question is, or is becoming, a police state. Such statements should be seen as valid in the area of political hyperbole, propaganda tactics, and cautionary predictions of long-term trends, but not as a scholarly use of the (somewhat narrow) term "police state". FICTIONAL EXAMPLES OF POLICE STATES
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