Among security institutions, police occupy a unique position. In addition to specializing in the repression of dissent, police monitor society and enforce order. Yet within research studying state repression, how police institutions are used and deployed to control domestic threats remain under-explored, particularly as it relates to the dual functionality just described. In this study, we develop and test an explanation of police repression accounting for the bifurcation of Mann’s two modalities of state power: infrastructural power and despotic power. Infrastructural power allocates police resources to surveil dissidents and preemptively limit dissent’s emergence or escalation. Police deploy despotic power through repressive responses to political threats. Empirically, we employ unique data to investigate police repression and the modalities of power in Guatemala. To analyze how shifting the balance between infrastructural and despotic power affects police repression, we isolate damage occurring from an earthquake that exogenously reshaped the landscape of infrastructural power. Results affirm the role of infrastructural power in regulating the despotic power of the state. Where local infrastructure was most affected by the earthquake, the security apparatus lost the capacity to surveil nascent movements and predict their activity, thereby providing opportunity for dissidents to mobilize and forcing police to (over-)react rather than shutdown resistance preemptively. However, the intensity of state violence recedes as the state recovers from the infrastructural damage and regains its control of local district.

在安全机构中，警察占据着独特的位置。除了专门镇压异议人士外，警察还监视社会并执行秩序。然而，在研究国家镇压的研究中，如何使用和部署警察机构来控制家庭威胁仍未得到充分探索，特别是因为它与上述双重功能有关。在这项研究中，我们开发并测试了对警察镇压的解释，解释了曼恩两种国家权力模式的分歧：基础设施权力和专政权力。基础设施权力分配警察资源来监视异议人士，并优先限制异议人士的出现或升级。警方通过对政治威胁的镇压回应来部署专制权力。根据经验，我们使用独特的数据来调查危地马拉的警察镇压和权力方式。为了分析基础设施和专制权力之间的平衡变化如何影响警察的镇压，我们将地震造成的损害隔离开来，该地震外源性地重塑了基础设施的格局。结果证实了基础设施力量在调节国家的专政力量中的作用。在当地基础设施受地震​​影响最严重的地方，安全机构失去了监测新生运动和预测其活动的能力，从而为持不同政见者提供了动员和强迫警察（过度）反应而不是先发制人的抵抗力量的机会。但是，随着国家从基础设施破坏中恢复过来并重新获得对当地地区的控制，国家暴力的强度逐渐减弱。