Abstract
The formation of democratic states - including the very uneven American case - requires the reconciliation of two potentially antithetical processes: the construction of authoritative institutions and the development of modes of democratic participation. These two processes are, in practice, thoroughly intertwined, both conceptually, since state institutions are never fully separable from social interests, and causally, since social forces expressed through democratic mechanisms powerfully shape the state, even as authorities invent, alter, and channel social forces and their political organizations and behavior. One of the important ways that states affect democratic contestation is by policing the speech and actions of challenger groups - those that authorities identify as representing extreme and illegitimate ideologies. War affect these relationships in complex ways, by activating new or stronger forms of collective action, for example. Do wars generally augment state authority - here conceptualized as requiring both ideational claims and institutional capacity - in ways that affect the scope, practice, or quality of democracy? This chapter addresses the relationship between war and federal policing institutions in America over the long term. While war inspired new presidential claims, it did not necessarily build corresponding institutions.