Executive spectacle policing: protest, immigration, and lessons from the performance of state power in the Trump era
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This article introduces the concept of executive spectacle policing to theorise a mode of governance in which law enforcement becomes a performative extension of executive power. Through analysis of federal deployments during the Trump administration – including Lafayette Square, Operation Legend, Operation Diligent Valor, and immigration enforcement – this paper argues that policing was repurposed as political theater. No longer merely a tool for maintaining order, policing became a public spectacle designed to convey strength, instill fear, and consolidate authority. Drawing on Deboard’s theory of state spectacle, Agamben’s theory of the state of exception, and the evolution of executive federalism as a mode of centralised and often coercive governance, the article examines how federal enforcement actions were staged for visibility and mediated through fragmented news environments. These spectacles were not isolated events, but deliberate interventions in the political-symbolic field – broadcast and amplified to signal inclusion to supporters and exclusion to dissenters. The analysis shows how executive spectacle policing thrives in a media ecosystem where virality, emotional resonance, and narrative simplicity often override procedural legitimacy. With Trump’s return to office in 2025, these tactics appear to be accelerating, underscoring the need for criminological inquiry into how power is performed, mediated, and normalised. This article calls for a critical rethinking of policing that centers its symbolic and communicative dimensions. By revealing how law enforcement operates as both message and mechanism, the concept of executive spectacle policing provides a framework for understanding the authoritarian aesthetics of modern state power.
Source: Policing & Society
Author: Evan T. Sorg
Institution: Rowan University
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4412583296