Anticipatory Obedience

Anticipatory obedience is the act of preemptively conforming to what one expects an authority figure to want, often without having received an explicit order; it can also take the form of not challenging an authority's demands even when doing so remains possible. This behavior of self-censorship and complying in advance has been historically significant, particularly under authoritarian regimes, where it has helped enable the swift imposition of policies that might otherwise have met resistance. The historian Timothy Snyder has described its danger as individuals thinking ahead about what a more repressive government will want and offering themselves without being asked, teaching power what it can do.