Before the plague, Philip Blake was an ordinary man: a father, a neighborhood guy, someone who probably would never have shown up in a criminal file. When the world collapses, he founds Woodbury, a walled town that from the outside looks like an oasis of order: clean streets, electric light, barbecues. Inside, its leader keeps human heads in fish tanks, stages gladiator fights and executes anyone who threatens his power. The Walking Dead unwittingly poses a textbook criminological question: what turned the model neighbor into a tyrant? The answer lies less in him than in what disappeared around him.
// The theoryThe barrier that fell
The situational action theory of Per-Olof Wikström breaks down criminogenic exposure —what pushes toward crime in a setting— into two barriers. One is the place's moral norms. The other is surveillance: the presence of someone —police, community, cameras, witnesses— able to detect and sanction. When that barrier holds, even a person with some propensity thinks twice. When it falls, the last external restraint disappears.
The apocalypse is the perfect disappearance of the guardian. No police arrive, no judge to answer to, no newspaper to publish it, no neighbors with the power to judge whoever is in charge. Woodbury is a setting with surveillance at zero. And what SAT predicts for a context like this is exactly what happens: whoever has a latent propensity —held in check until then by the fear of consequences— finds the way clear. The Governor does not discover a new evil; he discovers that no one is watching anymore.
Deterrence is only a backup
In SAT, fear of punishment is not the engine of good conduct: it is a safety net that acts afterward, once the moral filter has already let crime through as an option and the person hesitates. For someone with a firm morality, surveillance is almost irrelevant —they would not offend anyway—. For someone with a weak morality, surveillance is all that is left. The Governor belongs to the second group: while there was a guardian, he held back; without a guardian, he was unleashed. That is why the collapse of surveillance is so dangerous: it reveals how many people behaved well only because someone was watching.
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// The subjectThe guardian who becomes a predator
There is an extra twist that makes Philip Blake so instructive: he does not merely exploit the surveillance vacuum, he takes over the guardian's post. He sets himself up as the law of Woodbury. And there SAT crosses paths with an old intuition: the problem is not only that there is no one to watch, but who takes over the watching. A guardian with an eroded morality does not reduce crime: he monopolizes it. The Governor dictates the setting's norms while breaking them, and since there is no barrier above him, nothing corrects him.
His resemblance to el Juez is obvious —both flourish where the law does not reach—, but the nuance matters. Holden preaches a world without norms; the Governor pretends to uphold them while dismantling the surveillance that would enforce them. It is the most common and closest case: not the prophet of chaos, but the administrator who takes advantage of the fact that no one can hold him accountable.
El Gobernador
// The crackThe mirage of "the end of the world brings out the worst"
It is tempting to conclude that catastrophes «bring out the worst in people». SAT corrects the cliché with precision. They do not bring out the worst in everyone: the show's firm-morality characters keep risking themselves for others even without surveillance, because their conduct never depended on the guardian. What the collapse does is unmask the distribution of propensities that already existed: it separates those who held back out of conviction from those who held back out of fear. The apocalypse does not manufacture governors; it stops hiding them.
The idea connects with routine activities, which also place the capable guardian as the piece that, when missing, completes the recipe for crime. SAT adds the half that theory leaves in the shadows: surveillance only matters in combination with the propensity of the person in front of you. Without a guardian and without propensity, nothing happens. Without a guardian and with propensity, Woodbury appears.
Sustaining the legitimate guardian
If legitimate surveillance is the last barrier against latent propensities, then protecting it —accountable institutions, checks and balances, transparency— is prevention in its purest form. The Governor is not a warning about zombies: it is a warning about what happens when whoever is in charge no longer has anyone watching them. SAT's lesson is sober: the good conduct of many rests on someone being able to hold them accountable. Caring for that «someone» is caring for the whole setting.
Woodbury, seen from afar, still looks like a town at peace. That is the most unsettling part: the setting without surveillance does not always look chaotic. Sometimes it looks orderly, lit and calm… until you discover who decides, and that there is no longer anyone left to tell him no.
Three key takeaways
- Surveillance is the second barrier of criminogenic exposure: whoever detects and sanctions. When it falls, the last external restraint on crime disappears.
- The Governor had a latent propensity that the world with law restrained; the apocalypse removes the guardian and frees it. It does not transform him: it unmasks him.
- In SAT deterrence is only a backup: irrelevant for firm morality, decisive for weak morality. That is why protecting the legitimate guardian is pure prevention.
Sources · further reading
- Wikström, P-O. H. (2006). «Individuals, Settings, and Acts of Crime». En The Explanation of Crime. Cambridge University Press.
- Cohen, L. E. & Felson, M. (1979). «Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach». American Sociological Review, 44.
- Zimbardo, P. (2007). El efecto Lucifer: el porqué de la maldad. Paidós.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
¿Quién es El Gobernador?
El Gobernador («Philip Blake») es un villano de The Walking Dead, analizado en KRIMINIS con la lente de la criminología. How many seemingly normal people behave well only because someone is watching?
¿Por qué El Gobernador (Philip Blake) se convierte en villano?
The Walking Dead and situational action: when the apocalypse erases every guardian, Philip Blake crowns himself lord of Woodbury. It is the portrait of absent surveillance —the setting's barrier that, once it falls, lets crime through—.
¿Qué teoría criminológica explica a El Gobernador?
El caso de El Gobernador se analiza desde la Acción situacional. Wikström's criminogenic exposure has two barriers: the setting's norms and the surveillance that enforces them. The Governor illustrates the second: in a world without police, without courts and without witnesses to hold anyone accountable, a man with a latent propensity becomes a despot. It is not that the apocalypse transforms him inside; it is that it removes the guardian that restrained him. Woodbury shows the destabilizing power of a setting without surveillance, and why deterrence, in SAT, works only as a backup.
