State of ExceptionTwo months after the attacks of 9/11, the Bush administration, in the midst of what it perceived to be a state of emergency, authorized the indefinite detention of noncitizens suspected of terrorist activities and their subsequent trials by a military commission. Here, distinguished Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben uses such circumstances to argue that this unusual extension of power, or "state of exception," has historically been an underexamined and powerful strategy that has the potential to transform democracies into totalitarian states. The sequel to Agamben's Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, State of Exception is the first book to theorize the state of exception in historical and philosophical context. In Agamben's view, the majority of legal scholars and policymakers in Europe as well as the United States have wrongly rejected the necessity of such a theory, claiming instead that the state of exception is a pragmatic question. Agamben argues here that the state of exception, which was meant to be a provisional measure, became in the course of the twentieth century a normal paradigm of government. Writing nothing less than the history of the state of exception in its various national contexts throughout Western Europe and the United States, Agamben uses the work of Carl Schmitt as a foil for his reflections as well as that of Derrida, Benjamin, and Arendt. In this highly topical book, Agamben ultimately arrives at original ideas about the future of democracy and casts a new light on the hidden relationship that ties law to violence. |
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acts anomic anomie aporias application Article 48 auctor auctoritas and potestas Augustus authority become the rule Benjamin biopolitical Carl Schmitt citizen civil coincides commissarial dictatorship concept constituent power constitutional dictatorship consuls Critique of Violence decision declared decree defined democracy Dio Cassius diritto emergency essential état de siège exception executive existence extreme fact force of law force-of-law formula Führertum function Gesammelte Schriften Gratian Hugo Preuss human action imperium interrex issue iustitium juridical context juridical norm juridical order jurists lacuna law-decrees legislative living law Magdelain magistrate means modern Mommsen necessity nexus Nissen nomos originary paradigm parliament patres person Political Theology possible precisely president problem proclaim public law public mourning pure violence reference regime regulated Reich relation Republic Roman Rossiter Schmitt Schmitt's theory scholars seeks senatus consultum ultimum sense siege situation sovereign dictatorship sphere suspension of law term theory of sovereignty tion tumult undecidability Weimar Weimar Constitution Weimar Republic zone