It is impossible to carry out democratic elections, try cases at court, design and enforce laws, or indeed manage any of the other quiet business of government when agencies beyond the state also have access to violence. For just this reason, people and parties who wish to undermine democracy and the rule of law create and fund violent organizations that involve themselves in politics. Such groups can take the form of a paramilitary wing of a political party, the personal bodyguard of a particular politician -- or apparently spontaneous citizens' initiatives, which usually turn out to have been organized by a party or its leader.
-- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, p. 43
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