The practice or philosophy of extreme severity in law and punishment, or adherence to harsh rules and enforcement.
From dragon or Draco (the lawgiver), combined with the suffix -ism indicating a practice or system. This is a more technical term than draconianism for similar concepts of rigid severity.
Draconism and draconianism are competing words for the same concept—lawmakers' harshness—showing how language competes to describe human social problems through historical metaphors!
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