Meaning of night watchman state | Babel Free

Definitions

Government that is limited to a bare minimum of functions, usually just military, police, and courts.

Equivalents

Examples

“The doctrines of conservative liberalism were propounded by the late nineteenth century's leading intellectual proponents of the night watchman state.”

“For these neoLiberal^([sic]) Democrats of the Orange Book school remain determined to junk social liberalism for economic liberalism. Their guiding light is the Gladstonian ideal of a low tax, laissez-faire, “night-watchman state”.”

CEFR level