The Paranoid State

This paper develops a theory of autocratic politics to show that the elements of state domination may create and sustain a state of paranoia.1 It is no secret that authoritarian regimes use subtle means of coercion and surveillance to maintain control.2 Yet, while scholars of political psychology and philosophy have extensively analyzed interpretations of political control, such as Foucault's panopticon,3 little research has examined domination in relationship to paranoid behavior. Research indicates that paranoia is not simply an individual mental state, but that it is also a condition of modern societies and politics.4 What remains less clear is the controversial possibility of extrapolating the concept of paranoia from individual to collective subjects. Moreover, the research literature lacks heuristic frameworks of the causes of paranoid behavior within authoritarian contexts. To address these shortcomings, this article introduces and tests a double interpretation of social paranoia.In order to contribute to a growing field of comparative political philosophy and psychology,5 I elaborate on a normatively significant theory of the paranoid state. To accomplish this task, I combine two theoretical models - a psychiatric and a philosophical one. Relying on Shitij Kapur's clinical model of "aberrant salience" and on Daniel Freeman et αΓs investigation of paranoia in a non-clinical population,61 first examine shared psychosis disorder in order to theorize the interaction between individual and societal paranoia. I then explore Vaclav Havel's philosophical model of legitimacy games in post-totalitarian regimes in order to explain paranoid systems of social domination. Combining these two models and applying them to a case study of Belarus, I identify elements that both sustain and counter the state of paranoia. I first find that where domination is intense, paranoia may become a means of sustaining a regime's capacity to control and a cultural trait. Second, paranoid control maintained through excessive order and rumination as well as emulation and memory abuse may be counteracted by approaches such as fostering the diversification of arts and historical memory.A Psychiatric Paradigm of Social ParanoiaWhile there is no one-to-one identification of the dynamics between an individual and a society, there is heuristic value in applying both clinical and non-clinical paradigms to social contexts. In examining first the clinical relationship between the paranoid individual and social paranoia, I compare social paranoia to the psychiatric syndrome of folie a deux. This psychosis is manifested in shared delusions. A delusion represents a firmly held false belief that emerges from an idiosyncratic and self-referential interpretation of external reality. In the syndrome of folie a deux, a delusional patient who is in a dominant relationship with a more passive other imposes the delusional belief on the second individual. The dominant patient first makes a cognitive effort to cope with disturbing events and their mental representations. A more passive and initially healthy associate then becomes deluded through association with the principal.7 Shared by a set of actors, the content of such a cognitive structure finally influences those actors' responses to a particular situation.Paranoia becomes socially self-perpetuating through the assignment of salience to ambiguous information that is interpreted as a threat. Paranoid individuals vigilantly scan their environment and find stimuli that signal potential threats. They often believe that they are being persecuted and cling to a fear that people want to harm them in some way.8 Moreover, paranoid individuals interpret a threatening action as orchestrated by, and linked to, other people through exaggerated attribution of social coherence. Particularly in societies under intense surveillance, social threats become more easily perceived by their members. Perceptions of threat then legitimate delusional coping practices, which leads to a distortion of the objective situation. …