A state within a state or a deep state is a political situation in a country when an internal organ ("deep state"), such as the armed forces or public authorities (intelligence agencies,
police , secret police , administrative agencies , and branches of government bureaucracy ), does not respond to the civilian political leadership. Although the state within a state can be conspiratorial in nature, the deep state can also take the form of entrenched unelected career civil servants acting in a non-conspiratorial manner, to further their own interests (e.g. continuity of the state as distinct from the administration, job security, enhanced power and authority, pursuit of ideological goals and objectives, and the general growth of their agency) and in opposition to the policies of elected officials, by obstructing, resisting, and subverting the policies and directives of elected officials. The term, like many in politics, derives from the Greek language (κράτος εν κράτει,
kratos en kratei , later adopted into Latin as
imperium in imperio or status in statu ).
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