Tolerating State Violence

Why do we tolerate state violence, despite it being disagreeable, painful and often harmful for our societies? Drawing on three liberal democratic countries – Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom – this book exposes how states perpetuate tolerance for their violence through representations, the management of experiences and testimonies, bureaucratic and technological architectures and ritualistic reforms.

Using contemporary case examples – including in relation to borders, welfare, surveillance, incarceration, slavery and climate crimes – the book provides an analysis of how state institutions organize and facilitate politics, laws, bureaucracies, economies, technologies and social experiences such that violence is normalized. It spells out how state harms can be known and made tolerable, with the resulting pain and trauma becoming part of everyday governance, social relations, institutional policies and personal experiences.

In exploring the many state structures, strategies and techniques that facilitate and sustain violence, this book also maps out what we must challenge and where our resistance efforts and demands for transformation must be directed. In short, the book questions: How do state institutions create the conditions for the toleration of state violence and harms? And, from this knowledge, how might we make the violence and harms intolerable?

Tolerating State Violence is indispensable reading for students and scholars of criminology and criminal justice, sociology and political science. The book will also appeal to policymakers, legal professionals and social justice advocates concerned with institutional reform and addressing systemic violence.