ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship of liberal-democratic states to dissent raised when they criminalize politics by declaring certain kinds of speakings and doings to be a crime. It opens with a case study of the responses of the American state to the Occupy Wall Street movement of September-October 2011, to highlight some of the ways dissent, and the political was criminalised. The scope of the inquiry is then broadened to take in two other western liberal-democracies, Britain and Australia. The task here is essentially descriptive. The chapter surveys some of the ways these liberal-democratic states have legislated to outlaw dissent by denominating dissent in speech and deed as ‘sedition’, ‘subversion’, ‘extremism’, ‘terrorism’ or public disorder. It then briefly surveys some of the ways dissent is then policed using techniques like surveillance, arrest, and harassment. The case is made that the liberal-democratic state, and especially its security and police agencies operate on the premise that liberal-democracy needs to be protected from itself, even to the extent that the commitment to the ‘rule of law’ principle may on occasion need to be jettisoned.
