That is not to say that politics are enforced through direct violence, mind you. Consider the panopticon: a control system which allows all its subjects the ability to know they might be currently observed, while granting the ability to another entity (hereby referred to as "watcher") of, at any given time, observing any of the subjects and enforcing the societal rules. There is, of course, no way for the watcher to observe all of the subjects at the same time. However, wouldn't the implicit threat of violence that the possible presence the watcher contains within itself lead these subjects to change their attitudes seemingly unprompted, even in the absence of any real threat?
