Repressive state apparatus utilizes tools such as violence, threats, institutionalization, or force to show dominance in a matter or situation regarding an individual or social class. The reason for this is to maintain power over a social class, person, or situation. This directly affects the behaviors of how people behave. An example is in some states, if someone was to take another human beings life, they would be given the death penalty. This is to avoid society thinking its okay to act on such a heinous crime.

According to Althusser, its called repressive because it utilizes force, violence and institutionalization for control over people, as opposed to persuasion.

Ideological state Apparatus utilizes tools such as persuasion, behavioral habits, and social/cultural norms to gain control over people. In example, churches create behavioral habits such as to praise a higher power, abide by these commandments which in turn are very similar to laws and to be a self righteous human being. when you do well in school, you get rewarded from your teacher or maybe your parents which is a form of persuasion combined with cultural norms to condition you to be a better person for society. This tactic works because it is based on persuasion rather than force, allowing the person to make the choice for themselves and if they choose to do so, creating structure for society. When people feel like they are forced or have no choice, they choose to rebel or do the opposite of what “society wants.”

Both repressive and ideological apparatuses are different because repressive apparatus is geared towards using brute force or the law with punitive punishments to gain control over a situation as opposed to ideological apparatus which uses persuasion and forms of rewards to gain control over a situation. Both are common because both are used to create structure in society, but the implementations of them are completely different.

Below is an example of ideological apparatus.