State within a state is a political situation in a country when an internal organ, generally from the armed forces, intelligence agencies or police, does not respond to the civilian leadership.

Sometimes, the term refers to state companies that, though formally under the command of the government, act de facto like private corporations.

Certain political debates surrounding the separation of Church and State revolve around the perception that if left unchecked, the Church might turn into a kind of State within a State, an illegitimate outgrowth of the State's natural civil power.^[1]

[edit] Alleged cases of “state within a state”

• Nazi Germany's Schutzstaffel
• Weimar Republic's Reichswehr
• Francoist Spain's military forces
• Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence^[2]
• Cameroon's Cameroon Development Corporation
• British Guiana's Booker-McConnell
• Lebanon's PLO (see PLO in Lebanon).
• Lebanon's Hezbollah.
• Ivan the Terrible's oprichnina
• Islamic Emirate of Waziristan

[edit] See also

• Fifth Column
• Deep state
• Civilian control of the military
• Monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force

[edit] References

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