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Public administration theory and practice tend to overlook the possibility of state political criminality in liberal democracies. This article proposes a policy science to detect state crimes against democracy (SCADs), using social and political theory to understand when, why, how, and by whom such crimes are likely to be committed. After defining SCADs and differentiating them from other types of political crimes, the article analyzes SCADs in terms of antidemocratic tendencies posited by theories of liberal democracy. SCADs are traced to specific institutional objectives by analyzing patterns in SCAD targets, timing, and modus operandi. The role played by career civil servants in exposing government crimes and deceptions suggests that professional public administrators are a critical line of defense against the criminalization of the state.
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Lance deHaven‐Smith (2006) studied this question.
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