Preventive repression is repression of political opponents before they actually carry out any activities that would threaten the current political system. The term was used to describe the political methods of the

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

caudillo A ''caudillo'' ( , ; osp, cabdillo, from Latin , diminutive of ''caput'' "head") is a type of personalist leader wielding military and political power. There is no precise definition of ''caudillo'', which is often used interchangeably with " ...

'' Stroessner, whose methods of "nipping in the bud" the possibilities of any real or imagined unrest were reported at a 1972 Inter-American Defense Board meeting of US and Latin American military. James D. Cockcroft, "Paraguay's Stroessner: An Ultimate Caudillo?", in:
p. 340
/ref>

Herbert Marcuse Herbert Marcuse (; ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German-American philosopher, social critic, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at the Humboldt University ...

, in his work ''

Counterrevolution and Revolt ''Counterrevolution and Revolt'' is a 1972 book by the philosopher Herbert Marcuse. Summary Marcuse writes that the western world has reached a new stage of development, in which "the defense of the capitalist system requires the organization of ...

'' operates with the term "preventive counterrevolution". Since then, the term has been used to describe actions of other dictatorships.

References

Political terminology Persecution Political repression {{poli-term-stub