State Apparatus

by Vrinda Nair and Swaraj Choudhary

Louis Althusser: Repressive and Ideological Apparatuses

Louis Althusser (1918–1990) was a prominent French philosopher and a leading intellectual figure in Europe during the 1950s and 1960s. His influential essay, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” has become a seminal text in the field of social sciences.

While Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels claimed that ideology was a system of falsehoods meant to serve the ruling class, Althusser offered a more detailed analysis, drawing upon the work of Antonio Gramsci, Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. He offered a framework for understanding how states maintain control over societies. Expanding on Marxist thought, Althusser explored the inner workings of state and introduced the concept of the state as a “machine of repression.”

According to him, for any social formation to continue to exist, it must essentially, continually and perpetually reproduce the forces of production (labour, raw material and land), the relations of production (division of labour) and the conditions of production (working conditions of labour). While the reproduction of the production forces happens through the wage system, the reproduction of the relations and conditions of production happen through state apparatuses which are insidious machinations furthering the ruling class ideology.

To this end, he argued that the state maintains its dominance through two apparatuses: the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) and the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA).

The Repressive State Apparatus (RSA)

The Repressive State Apparatus operates primarily through coercion and force. It includes institutions such as the police, military, and legal system, whose primary function is to suppress dissent and maintain order. These organs act through visible force, violence, and surveillance to reinforce state authority.

For instance, the police, as a key part of the RSA, can arrest or incriminate individuals under false charges. Their response to events like the farmers’ protest in Delhi illustrates the repressive nature of the state, where dissent is immediately quashed using force. The military and police culture itself often fosters a brutal and desensitized attitude, designed to enforce state discipline. While these institutions are primarily coercive, they are also secondarily ideological, as they reinforce the belief that authority and order must be maintained at all costs.

The Ideological State Apparatus (ISA)

While the RSA operates through direct control, Althusser places significant emphasis on the Ideological State Apparatus, which works through soft power. The ISA includes institutions such as religion, the family, the education system, the media, and popular culture, including films, books, and poetry. These formations are ostensibly ‘apolitical’ and are part of civil society rather than being a part of the formal state. These are not overtly violent or coercive but are powerful in shaping how individuals think, behave, and perceive the world. ISA uses methods other than physical violence and coercion to achieve the same results as the RSA- exertion of the dominance and will of the ruling class.

The ISA is primarily ideological and only secondarily repressive. It functions by disciplining minds and bodies, producing law-abiding citizens who don’t challenge the system. In schools, children are taught obedience and respect for authority. In families, they learn gender roles and hierarchy. Cultural products like Bollywood item songs or religious teachings also teach us values that serve the state’s interests. People internalize norms such as respecting the priest, obeying one’s husband, or tolerating toxic workplaces in the name of professionalism. This ideological conditioning promotes a society that values discipline over dissent. ISA is psychosocial in nature because they aim to inculcate ways of seeing and evaluating things, essentially teaching people how to think and behave.

Althusser regards the educational system as the most important apparatus among the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) in the present era. He argues that schools play a foundational role in shaping individuals by taking them in at a formative age and embedding dominant ideologies through different subjects like history, civics, and ethics. These institutions don’t just impart knowledge. They socialize students into acceptable norms of behavior. Throughout the education process, students are prepared to occupy roles that would help sustain the capitalist order. The role of the educational ISA can also be seen by organizations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which have started running their own schools. Through these institutions, they aim to mold children into individuals who will internalize their values which are aligned with their ideological agenda.

The ISA trains individuals to accept societal structures as natural. A “God-fearing, law-abiding” person is considered a successfully disciplined citizen. Waiters are taught to act in servitude, caste is practiced quietly through rituals like endogamous love marriages, and patriarchy is maintained through everyday practices. In all these cases, individuals reproduce the values and behaviors that sustain the existing power relations without ever feeling coerced.

According to Althusserm, the ruling class cannot hold power unless it exercises cultural hegemony through ISA. Ideology becomes an invisible force, ensuring that people not only follow the rules but also believe in them.

Louis Althusser’s framework reveals how power is not just enforced through violence but is also subtly ingrained in our everyday lives through ideology. The Repressive State Apparatus ensures immediate compliance, while the Ideological State Apparatus ensures long-term submission by capturing minds. Together, they enable the state to maintain control, not by constant policing, but by making people believe in the systems that oppress them. To challenge such dominance, it is not enough to confront visible repression, we must also question and dismantle the ideologies that justify it.