Mutatis mutandis

Meaning with things changed that should be changed or once the necessary changes have been made

Introduction—-https://oxfordre.com/politics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-32

Repression is the threat to subdue or act of subduing someone by institutional or physical force. Political violence is a particular form of repression involving the threat to use or actual use of physical force to achieve political goals. Acts of repression and/or political violence often violate fundamental human rights, and are sometimes referred to as human rights abuse.¹

Most systematic research into these forms of human rights abuse, particularly as perpetrated by governments, is built on assumptions of rationality: repression and political violence are strategic policies that governments employ in pursuit of important political and/or military objectives. The most fundamental of these objectives is the maintenance of control; leaders may have substantive preferences, but these cannot be implemented unless the leader survives in office (e.g., Ames, 1990). Correspondingly, the axiom underpinning existing work is that governments wish to remain in power.

The defining concept of the state is its monopoly on the legitimate use of coercion or physical force, including repression (Weber, 1919). By definition, then, all governments have coercive capacity. They have agents of repression, and those agents have assets available to them. This includes human and technical capital—size, strength, resources, and preparedness—in both the short and long terms (Davenport, 1996, pp. 382–383; see also Davenport, 1995a; Hanneman & Steinback, 1990; Huntington, 1964; Laswell, 1941; Randle, 1981; Walker & Lang, 1988).

Repressive agents may be military forces, militia, mercenaries, and so on, so long as they are seen as—and actually function as—legitimate extensions of the government. If the political opposition controls a repressive apparatus, it suggests that there is a tangible threat to the incumbent government’s grasp on power. If the people perceive the opposition’s repressive apparatus as legitimate, it suggests that the threat is authorized and has at least some popular support. Licit repression from an authority other than the government, then, indicates a real internal threat to the government’s grasp on power. So, why do governments repress? We assume that they do it in pursuit of quiescence and the quelling of popular dissent.

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SFPD did when the cop destroyed with his riot baton the spleen of Dolores Heurta from the United Farm Workers. Huerta, 58, a slight woman who is just over 5 feet tall, was in stable condition at San Francisco General Hospital after surgery to remove her spleen. Family members and UFW spokesmen said the injuries were caused by a baton-wielding police officer outside the St. Francis Hotel. Huerta was injured when police forced demonstrators away from a hotel where Vice President George Bush was holding a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser, officials said.