scholarly journals Network Society, Network-centric Warfare and the State of Emergency

2002 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 71-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Dillon

This article describes the new strategic discourse of network-centric warfare that has come to dominate US operational doctrines and concepts as well as strategic thinking. It also describes 11th September as a network attack. The state of exception becomes the rule via the confluence of geopolitical with biopolitical power and the strategic logic of network-centric thinking, and with it the problematization of security goes hyperbolic in the form of `The Terror'.

Author(s):  
Willy Thayer

This chapter discusses Walter Benjamin's “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” which refers to a regime of sovereign representation where the state of emergency is the rule. It explains the paradigm of sovereignty that is constituted teleologically from exception, as the foundation and conservation of representational regimes. For Benjamin, the state of emergency is equivalent to “progress as a historical norm.” The chapter also looks at the commissary-sovereign state of exception that is functional to a policing critique and a politics whose prerogative is to put the regimes of representation into crisis. It analyzes a prerogative that subsumes the destructive character of the exception within a dialectical concentration of the rule, making the spectrality of destruction a function of the system of representation.


Author(s):  
Weronika Adamska

The aim of this paper is to propose a definition of the state of exception within the framework of the philosophy of law. The nature of the state of exception is both a legal and a political one. For this reason, it is a subject of inquiry in various disciplines. As a consequence of its hybrid character, state of exception is hard to define, which leads to definitional scepticism. As a criterial definition is impossible to reach, I believe that it should be replaced with a paradigmatic one. Such a definition should take into account the acquis of, among others, philosophy, history or political science, so that it may apply to different methodological approaches. In order to do so, I present the main definitional groups (state of exception as a normative fact, as a constitutional dictatorship, as a political fact, and as a legal void). Next, using the criteria that are common to all those definitions, I propose and analyse three constitutive elements of the state of emergency: a crisis, a suspension of ordinary laws, and a temporary character of this suspension. The definition I propose can help to assess whether a given state is a form of a state of exception. This is of a particular relevance as emergency laws are nowadays widely discussed in the context of terrorist threats.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 535-542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ozgun Topak

This article examines surveillance initiatives under the AKP rule in Turkey (2002-present). The AKP had first tested and perfected surveillance methods, including wiretapping, internet surveillance and surveillance by collaborator-informant networks, over its key opponents and dissidents to capture the state apparatus and later applied similar methods to govern the entire society. In the aftermath of the 2013 Gezi protests, surveillance began to have a mass character, even though targeted surveillance practices continued. Fearful of another popular public revolt, the AKP established a mass surveillance mechanism and empowered it by new amendments to security and communication laws, to pre-empt and suppress public dissent. The recent state of emergency measures following the failed coup attempt in July 2016 represented a further drift towards totalitarian surveillance. The personal liberties were suspended and the state of exception became a permanent condition.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 48
Author(s):  
Pablo Estévez

The movement of Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico began in 1994, succeeding in generating a change in Mexican society by valuing indigenous liberation practices. However, a state of emergency is instituted in Zapatista territories according to laws that grant amnesty and regulate the legal vacuum. Certain Mexican artists such as Erick Beltrán, Gabriel Kuri, Abraham Cruzvillegas and Pablo Kubli, contribute critical reflections with works sustained in the context of pure violence of the State. The theoretical framework is constrained by the theories of Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin, Giorgio Agamben and Achille Mbembe, who contribute to the understanding of the state of exception that the State implements by modifying sovereignty and Human Rights. The method used in the article corresponds to the reception of literary texts. The artistic pieces that are integrated by Pablo Kubli represent the interdisciplinary contribution of the social sciences and the practice of art, with images, schemes and interventions that are argumentative reflections of the environment of globalized violence, and of social resistance to the paradigm of modification of autonomy in intervened regions. In addition, a comparative approach with states of emergency of globalized countries is proposed according to the events of September 11, 2001 in New York and March 11, 2004 in Madrid, among others. Starting from the Mexican experience and from global countries, the term of sovereignty is modified by the violence of the State over territories cut off by the permanence of the state of exception and restrictions on constitutional guarantees.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 445-454
Author(s):  
Sanaa Alsarghali

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised awareness across the globe of how constitutions respond to crisis. Typically, countries, and their constitutions, have provisions that enable governments to respond to these crises rapidly through forms of exceptional powers which suspend usual constitutional norms. These powers are often invoked after declaring a ‘state of emergency’, a constitutional clause that has strict stipulations and requirements. Certain regimes, however, have been known to abuse these exceptional powers and to use them in times of normalcy (non-crisis). This paper examines how Bahrain has used exceptional measures to confront COVID-19, within the context of its past use of such powers, and suggests that Bahrain is not in a state of emergency, but is now operating in what Giorgio Agamben has labelled ‘a state of exception’.


2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (8) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Jean-Claude Paye

Following the July 14, 2016, massacre in Nice, French President François Hollande once again extended for three months a state of emergency that was to have ended on July 26. An initial, twelve-day state of emergency had been declared after the Paris attacks and extended for three months by a law of November 2015. Still another three-month extension was added and came to an end on May 26, only to be extended for two additional months. Despite the obvious ineffectiveness of such a measure…it has been extended yet again, through January 2017.… This normalization of the "state of exception" has provoked only a muted public reaction. France has thus entered into a permanent state of emergency. This choice is not the result of exceptional events to which the country must respond, but rather expresses an intention to change the political system, as shown by the move to constitutionalize the state of emergency.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.


2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 322-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ezgi Tuncer Gürkaş

Turkey’s border with Syria today is a laboratory in which biopolitics and the spectacle coincide in new ways. As a consequence of the ongoing war between the state and Kurdish insurgents, and the state of emergency accompanying it, this border region has incrementally transformed into a “zone of indistinction” in which the spatial concepts of inside and outside interpenetrate. As exception is normalized, the logic of “the camp” (in Agamben’s sense) tends to become a dispositif. Exceptional routines are being exercised in this border region both to (re)construct the figure of the “Kurd” as a citizen and to generalize the domain of the camp, while also producing bare life in the context of counterterrorism. However, the “Kurd” as a subject cannot be ambiguously constructed, neither can the region be politically homogenized. Based on multisited fieldwork in the border city of Mardin, I claim that this zone of indistinction is simultaneously the place of revolt and resistance for the Kurdish case. Against this backdrop, the article argues the practical implications of counterterrorism policies in the region by focusing on how the state of exception is enforced on the Kurdish population as a biopolitical tool while being represented as a public spectacle to the rest of Turkey.


Problemos ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 107-120
Author(s):  
Kasparas Pocius

Šiuolaikinės politinės filosofijos kontekste jau maždaug dvidešimt metų neatslūgsta domėjimasis biopolitinėmis teorijomis, kurių dėmesio centre atsiduria valdžios ir gyvybės santykis šiuolaikiniame pasaulyje, kairiųjų politinių filosofų vadinamame Imperija. Italų filosofo Giorgio Agambeno dėka biopolitikos instrumentai buvo panaudoti nepaprastosios padėties ir homo sacer sampratų tyrinėjimams. Šiame tekste, pasitelkiant nepaprastosios padėties bei su ja susijusias sampratas, bus gilinamasi į šiuolaikinės valdžios ir valdymo problemas. Aptarsime vokiečių teisės teoretiko Carlo Schmitto nepaprastosios padėties teoriją, kaip alternatyvą jai pateikdami Walterio Benjamino mesianistinę tyro dieviškojo smurto sampratą. Straipsnio tikslas – pagrįsti Benjamino idėją, kad dieviškasis smurtas gali įveikti galios taikomą prievartą. Kita vertus, keliama idėja, kad Schmitto suverenios galios samprata užmaskuoja biopolitinį galios institucijų prievartos mechanizmą, o Benjamino dieviškojo smurto samprata leidžia jį demaskuoti.State of Exception and Divine Violence: The Crossroads between the Thought of Carl Schmitt and Walter BenjaminKasparas Pocius SummaryAlready back in 1940 Walter Benjamin told us that “the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule.” While invoking this claim, Giorgio Agamben enriches the contemporary biopolitical discourse with such concepts as ‘state of exception’ and ‘homo sacer’, which refer to bare lives of the majority of world population under contemporary capitalist and state rule. This paper, which seeks to analyse the work of Agamben, presents the notion of the state of exception by Carl Schmitt and counterposes it to the Benjaminian concept of divine violence. This counterposition allows to theoretically question the Schmittian politico-theological discourse which has been increasingly used by the conservative intellectuals and right-wing movements in the Eastern Europe, ‘the necessity of defending the nation and the state’ that they posit and to show the often concealed links between this discourse with biopower regimes. On the other hand, it is an attempt to point at a presence of multiple and radical constituent forces which, beyond liberal – constitutional and authoritarian – conservative frameworks of the State pose the threat to the political and economic order of late capitalism.


Author(s):  
Carlos Zuñiga Rendón

The article aims to analyze the principle of separation of powers in the Ecuadorian context of the state of emergency, decreed due to the health emergency caused by COVID-19. Its specific objective is to provide reasons to consolidate this principle and an adequate understanding of it, within a regime of exception. A brief introductory look at the theoretical and experiential aspects of the state of exception reveals the general suspicion of said institution. Then, from the analysis of its defining features, its regulated nature is deduced and conditioned by constitutional presuppositions. Thus, the state of exception exists and operates in observance of the principle of separation of powers. On this principle, an analytical journey of doctrinal bases consolidates the overcoming of its traditional notion towards a collaborative and dialogic opening between powers. Furthermore, the review of the minimum functions of each power of the state during the exceptional regime shows the prevalence of one power over others to be refuted. Already in the Ecuadorian context, a review of some specific scenarios induces the ratification of the operation of the principle of separation of powers and constitutional jurisdiction during the state of emergency. Finally, critical thinking is collected regarding the management of the pandemic, from which risks and warnings for democracy and human rights are inferred. 


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