The developmental history of solitary and supermax confinement: toward a phenomenology of the state of exception

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Polizzi
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Order ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
The Political ◽  
Developmental History ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Attitudes And Behaviors ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
History Of

The phenomenology of solitary and supermax confinement reflects what Giorgio Agamben has defined as the state of exception. The state of exception is defined as the blurring of the legal and political order, which constructs a zone of indifference for those forced to endure this situation. This notion of the state of exception can be applied to the zone of indifference created by the Supreme Court, which seems unwilling to outlaw this harmful practice relative to 8th Amendment protections prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment and the political order which is all too inclined to continue use strategy. One of the central aspects of this “ecology of harm”, is the way in which the very structures of this type of confinement, helps to invite and legitimize abusive attitudes and behaviors in penitentiary staff.

The tenure of English judges

1913 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. H. McIlwain
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
General Object ◽  
William Iii ◽  
Science Association

At the meeting of the Political Science Association last year, in the general discussion, on the subject of the recall, I was surprised and I must admit, a little shocked to hear our recall of judges compared to the English removal of judges on address of the houses of parliament.If we must compare unlike things, rather than place the recall beside the theory or the practice of the joint address, I should even prefer to compare it to a bill of attainder.In history, theory and practice the recall as we have it and the English removal by joint address have hardly anything in common, save the same general object.Though I may not (as I do not) believe in the recall of judges, this paper concerns itself not at all with that opinion, but only with the history and nature of the tenure of English judges, particularly as affected by the possibility of removal on address. I believe a study of that history will show that any attempt to force the address into a close resemblance to the recall, whether for the purpose of furthering or of discrediting the latter, is utterly misleading.In the history of the tenure of English judges the act of 12 and 13 William III, subsequently known as the Act of Settlement, is the greatest landmark. The history of the tenure naturally divides into two parts at the year 1711. In dealing with both parts, for the sake of brevity, I shall confine myself strictly to the judges who compose what since 1873 has been known as the supreme court of judicature.

scholarly journals Kongen hersker, men regerer ikke - Guvernementalitet, statificering og statspraksis hos Michel Foucault

2018 ◽  
pp. 89-108
Author(s):  
Nicolai Von Eggers ◽  
Mathias Hein Jessen
Keyword(s):  
Michel Foucault ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
The West ◽  
Historical Investigation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Way Of Thinking

Michel Foucault developed his now (in)famous neologism governmentality in the first of the two lectures he devoted to ’a history of governmentality, Security, Territory, Population (1977-78) and The Birth of Biopolitics (1978-79). Foucault developed this notion in order to do a historical investigation of ‘the state’ or ‘the political’ which did not assume the entity of the state but treated it as a way of governing, a way of thinking about governing. Recently, the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has taken up Foucault’s notion of governmentality in his writing of a history of power in the West, most notably in The Kingdom and the Glory. It is with inspiration from Agamben’s recent use of Foucault that Foucault’s approach to writing the history of the state (as a history of governmental practices and the reflection hereof) is revisited. Foucault (and Agamben) thus offer another way of writing the history of the state and of the political, which focuses on different texts and on reading more familiar texts in a new light, thereby offering a new and notably different view on the emergence of the modern state and politics.

Occasional decisiveness: Exception, decision and resistance in Kierkegaard and Schmitt

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-107
Author(s):  
Birte Löschenkohl
Keyword(s):  
Political Theology ◽  
State Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Order ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Face ◽  
Main Protagonist

This article explores the political potential of Kierkegaard's Repetition and develops a model of non-sovereign agency by analysing the figure of the ‘young man’, the main protagonist of the book. A curious reference in Schmitt's Political Theology serves as a cue for exploring Repetition through contrast with Schmitt's notions of sovereignty, decision and exception, as well as his critique of occasionalism in Political Romanticism. As in the case of Schmitt's sovereign, the young man's conflict is centred on the question of the exception. But by contrast to the former, the young man struggles with the exception from a position of opposition to the powers that govern. Furthermore, the exception in Repetition does not seek to stabilise a given order in the face of a threat, but, rather, to destabilise and transform order. The perspective offered facilitates a shift from thinking the exception as a state of exception, a concept that mostly concerns state politics, to an exception from the state. Kierkegaard's Repetition is thus shown to be relevant for conceptualising transformative agency from a position of marginalisation and exclusion from the hegemonic political order.

scholarly journals National institute of family and life advocates (NIFLA) : V. Becerra, or the right to be informed about your own reproductive rights.

Soft Power ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 322-346
Author(s):  
Vitulia Ivone
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Reproductive Rights ◽  
The State ◽  
Fundamental Issue ◽  
Health Clinics ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right

The Supreme Court has issued its decision in NIFLA v. Becerra, a 5–4 vote holding that the state of California cannot compel pregnancy-resource centers to advertise for the state’s abortion services. This decision represents a considerable victory for both the right to free speech and the conscience rights of pro-life Americans. The case concerned California’s Reproductive FACT Act, which mandated that both licensed and unlicensed women’s-health clinics (crisis-pregnancy or pregnancy-resource centers) not performing abortions had to provide a pre-written notice to clients. Though the law related specifically to abortion, free speech was the fundamental issue at stake. This paper analyzes the history of abortion in US legislation and the perspective of one of its fundamental civil rights.

Part III The Relationship Between the Judiciary and the Political Branches, 10 Judicial–Executive Relations in Nigeria’s Constitutional Development: Clear Patterns or Confusing Signals?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guobadia Ameze
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Development ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Court Of Appeal

This chapter examines the relationship between the executive and the judiciary in Nigeria. It sketches the history of assertions of judicial power by Nigerian courts, including the 1966 action by the Supreme Court to assert the continued validity of the 1963 constitution in the face of a military coup. It considers the role of the National Judicial Council in appointing and disciplining judges, an important issue in many systems. It recounts the saga surrounding President of the Court of Appeal Justice Salami, which raises the troubling prospect of the Chief Justice ‘packing’ the Council and possibly colluding with the executive to pursue political goals and discusses the issue of disputes over the appointment of state chief justices, who are appointed by governors on the Council’s recommendation. It also offers the Nigerian perspective on control over judicial budgets and administration, before concluding with a review of some significant cases.

States of conception: Renegotiating the mnemonic order amid crisis

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1333-1346
Author(s):  
Kerry Whigham
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Order ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
Recent Memory

A memory breach is an action, statement, or sociopolitical crisis that calls into dispute the mnemonic order, which is defined as an underlying orientation toward the past that serves to justify the political order and social order within a society. Following a memory breach, the society enters a “state of conception.” Related to the “state of exception” commonly associated with political crisis, the state of conception is a liminal space that follows a memory breach in which a society reexamines the mnemonic order. This article examines three recent memory breaches in Argentina, Germany, and the United States. By comparing three different breaches, each with different outcomes, it offers a framework for understanding memory breaches and the states of conception that they produce.

scholarly journals Migratory Victims of War: Syrians as the Homines Sacri

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (13) ◽  
pp. 283-312
Author(s):  
İbrahim Karataş
Keyword(s):  
Middle Eastern ◽  
The State ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
The Political ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Demographic Transitions ◽  
Spatial Management ◽  
Temporary Suspension ◽  
The Subject

The civil war broke out on March 15, 2011 with the political tension between either domestically legitimate or illegimate actors in Syria so that many people had impelledly or forcedly to migrate neighboring countries via crossing the land or maritime boundaries. These demographic transitions, in which many people, particularly children lost their lives, led admittedly European and Middle Eastern authorities to pursue the state of migratory exception policies. The state of exception revealing the homo sacer through including the exclusion of bodies, considering the use of Giorgio Agamben, corresponds to the temporary suspension of de facto legal norms, but the permanent state of this temporality. By problematizing the exemplary cases from European and Middle Eastern countries, this paper therefore copes not only with the exclusion of Syrians as homines sacri who are the subject of inclusionary techniques with regard to the spatial management of boats, cities and camps but the outlawry of existing juridico-political capabilities, also which may flexibly rule over the ways encompassing their lives and deaths.

The goddess Kumari at the Supreme Court

Focaal ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 (67) ◽  
pp. 32-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara Letizia
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Court Case ◽  
Legal Regime ◽  
Social Reforms ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Times

In 2005 a human rights petition at the Supreme Court challenged the tradition of living goddesses called Kumaris and, in particular, that of the former royal Kumari, who lives a sequestered ritual life until puberty, and who used to bless and legitimate the king once a year. The case went on while Nepal overthrew its king and was declared a secular state in 2007. When the judgment was pronounced in 2008, the goddess was still at her post and now blessed the president. This court case is taken to illustrate the directions and form that Nepali secularism is taking. It reveals a distinctive form of secularism where the state is involved in supporting and reforming religion. The religious tradition here is seen as an asset for the state, worthy of preserving, provided it makes way for social reforms in tune with the times. Despite being reduced in court to a child capable of being deprived of her rights, the political power of the goddess remains intact and her role for the nation is recognized in the verdict; both human and divine, the Kumari has been acknowledged under the now secular legal regime.

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