States Of Emergency In Liberal Democracies

In an emergency, statesmen concentrate power and suspend citizens' rights. These emergency powers are ubiquitous in the crisis government of liberal democracies, but their nature and justification is poorly understood. Based on a pluralist conception of political ethics and political power, this book shows how we can avoid the dangers and confusions inherent in the norm/exception approach that dominates both historical and contemporary debate. The book shows how liberal values need never - indeed must never - be suspended, even in times of urgency. Only then can accountability remain a live possibility. But at the same time, emergency powers can sometimes be justified with reference to extra-liberal norms that also operate in times of normalcy. By emphasizing the continuity between times of normalcy and emergency, the book illuminates the norms of crisis government, broadening our understanding of liberal democratic government and of political ethics in the process.

States of emergency are declared by governments with alarming frequency. When they are declared, it is taken for granted that their nature is understood. This book argues against this established view. Instead, the view advanced here analyzes what makes emergencies different from other types of similar events. Defending a hybrid liberal/republican approach, the book proposes that states of emergency are in fact poorly understood and therefore needlessly mismanaged when they occur. This mismanagement leads to a troubling derogation of established liberal democratic rights in the name of an unattainable form of hollow security. Further, the book argues that the existing rights of citizens ought to be defended (and not simply derogated) during states of emergency. Failure to do so is failure to comply with the formal values of liberal democracy itself.

The Total State pulls back the veil on the new American authoritarianism and why the same system of liberal democracy we say we cherish may have led us to our present state The modern United States is a nation full of censorship, lockdowns, riots, and political persecution. How did the land of the free become a surveillance state terrified of COVID and ruled by unaccountable bureaucrats? As a journalist, Auron MacIntyre witnessed firsthand the manipulation of news events, the bias of the press, and the relentless assault on truth during the Donald Trump presidency. Yet, it wasn't until the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 that his worldview was irrevocably shaken. The emergency measures and unchecked power wielded by authorities revealed a dark underbelly that defied the constitutional safeguards he had always believed in. The Total State delves into the core of MacIntyre's ideological crisis, exploring the erosion of individual liberties in the name of public health and the new brand of American authoritarianism that revealed itself under a state of emergency. Drawing inspiration from a diverse array of thinkers outside the mainstream, MacIntyre questions the narrative that has been ingrained in our political discourse. What if democracy doesn’t limit government but instead helps it to expand? What if the Constitution failed to restrain power as intended? The Total State doesn't offer easy answers, but it poses essential questions about the trajectory of our nation. MacIntyre meticulously examines the forces that have shaped our current reality, urging readers to confront uncomfortable truths about the state of our democracy and individual freedom. This thought-provoking exploration is a call to action, encouraging readers to understand the roots of our present predicament and contemplate the challenging path forward.

This book, one of the first of its kind, explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on modern Western democracies from a comparative constitutional law and policy perspective. Through 11 scholarly contributions, it tackles cutting-edge topics for the liberal state, such as emergency legislation, judicial scrutiny of COVID-19 measures, parliamentarism and executive decision-making during the pandemic. The book examines these topics both from a microscopic national constitutional angle, with a focus on European states, and from a macroscopic regional and comparative angle, on par with the American example. The COVID-19 pandemic is thus treated as an international state of emergency that has enabled far-reaching restrictions on essential human rights, such as freedom of movement, freedom of religion or even major political rights, while giving rise to the ‘administrative state.’ This edited volume explores each of these pressing themes in this exceptional context and evaluates different liberal states’ responses to the pandemic. Were these responses reasonable, effective and democratic? Or is the COVID-19 pandemic just the beginning of a new era of global democratic backsliding? How can liberal democracies manage similar crises in future? What lessons have we learned? The institutional knowledge gained turns out to be the key for the future of the rule of law.

Liberal democracies on both sides of the Atlantic find themselves approaching a state of emergency, beset by potent populist challenges of the right and left. But what exactly lies at the core of widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo? And how can the challenge be overcome? In Democracy in Crisis, Christian Lammert and Boris Vormann argue that the rise of populism in North Atlantic states is not the cause of a crisis of governance but its result. This crisis has been many decades in the making and is intricately linked to the rise of a certain type of political philosophy and practice in which economic rationality has hollowed out political values and led to an impoverishment of the political sphere more broadly. The process began in the 1980s, when the United States and Great Britain decided to unleash markets in the name of economic growth and democracy. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, several countries in Europe followed suit and marketized their educational, social, and healthcare systems, which in turn increased inequality and fragmentation. The result has been a collapse of social cohesion and trust that the populists promise to address but only make worse. Looking to the future, Lammert and Vormann conclude their analysis with concrete suggestions for ways politics can once again be placed in the foreground, with markets serving social relations rather than the reverse.

This book shows how emergency powers can be justifiable in liberal democracies without suspending liberal norms.

"Liberal democracy is in trouble. This volume considers the crosscutting causes and manifestations of the current crisis facing the liberal order. Over the last decade, liberal democracy has come under mounting pressure in many unanticipated ways. In response to seemingly endless crisis conditions, governments have turned with alarming frequency to extraordinary emergency powers derogating the rule of law and democratic processes. The shifting interconnections between new technologies and public power have raised questions about threats posed to democratic values and norms. Finally, the liberal order has been challenged by authoritarian and populist forces, promoting anti-pluralist agendas. Adopting a synoptic perspective that puts liberal disorder at the center of its investigation, this book uses multiple sources to build a common historical and conceptual framework for understanding major contemporary political currents. The contributions weave together historical studies and conceptual analyses of states of exception, emergency powers and their links with technological innovations as well as the tension-ridden relationship between populism and democracy and its theoretical, ideological, and practical implications"--

This book presents a systematic and comprehensive attempt by legal scholars to conceptualize the theory of emergency powers, combining post-September 11 developments with more general theoretical, historical and comparative perspectives. The authors examine the interface between law and violent crises through history and across jurisdictions.