States of Emergency in Liberal Democracies

✍ Scribed by Nomi Claire Lazar

• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 191
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

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.

✦ Table of Contents

Half-title......Page 3
Title......Page 5
Copyright......Page 6
Contents......Page 7
Acknowledgments......Page 9
1 The Problem of Emergency......Page 13
2 Must Exceptionalism Prove the Rule?......Page 31
EXISTENTIAL AND QUOTIDIAN ETHICS AND EXCEPTIONALISM......Page 34
REPUBLICAN EXCEPTIONALISM......Page 36
MACHIAVELLI’S FOUNDERS......Page 38
ROUSSEAU’S FOUNDERS......Page 41
DICTATORSHIP......Page 44
Autoritas Non Veritas......Page 48
“Souveran ist, wer uber den Ausnahmezustand entscheidet”......Page 50
HOBBES......Page 55
EXCEPTIONALISM AND THE PROBLEM OF EMERGENCY POWERS......Page 60
3 Two Concepts of Liberalism......Page 64
PHILOSOPHICAL LIBERALISM AND THE REJECTION OF EXCEPTIONALISM......Page 66
KANT ON EMERGENCY......Page 69
AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH......Page 77
LOCKE’S LIBERALISM OF EXPERIENCE......Page 79
A POLITICAL ETHICS OF EXPERIENCE......Page 89
CONCLUSION......Page 91
4 Are Rights Derogations Always Wrong?......Page 93
THE TROUBLE WITH NORMS AND EXCEPTIONS......Page 94
ETHICAL-POLITICAL PLURALISM......Page 100
THE SCOPE OF EXISTENTIAL ETHICS......Page 111
PRACTICAL CONSISTENCY......Page 116
PLURALISM AND THE TROUBLES WITH EXCEPTIONALISM......Page 120
CONCLUSION......Page 123
5 The Rule of Law and the Roman Dictatorship......Page 125
EMERGENCY RULE AND THE RULE OF LAW......Page 127
THE DICTATORSHIP IN REPUBLICAN ROME......Page 131
INFORMAL POWER AND ITS INFORMAL CONSTRAINT......Page 142
CONCLUSION......Page 146
6 The Norms of Crisis Government......Page 148
INSIDE/OUTSIDE......Page 150
THE INSIDE APPROACH......Page 153
THE OUTSIDE APPROACH......Page 159
CONCLUSION......Page 171
Bibliography......Page 175
Index......Page 185