Democratic states govern through a permanent state of exception rather than true crisis

Evidence

According to the political philosopher Giorgio Agamben, ambivalence—the ability to regard the same act as both unjustifiable and necessary—is central to the sovereign power of modern democracies. Such a breech in logic comes to be reasoned through “exceptional” moments of crisis, which the state uses to suspend established codes and procedures and to legitimize government abuses of power. Agamben claims that what characterizes modern democratic Western politics is that the exceptions have become the rule. The state of exception, he writes, becomes “the hidden foundation on which the entire political system rest[s].” Thus the United States was not necessarily in an exceptional state of crisis during George Bush’s War on Terror but rather operated through a perpetual “state of exception”—from the Cold War through the continued War on Terror. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 363

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Agamben’s concept of the state of exception and the notion of ambivalence as regards the same act as both unjustifiable and necessary.
• XREF: Connects to Agamben’s State of Exception and parallels Schmitt’s sovereign decision on the exception; also relevant to readings on post-9/11 counterterrorism and indefinite detention. — connects to: Neoliberals exploit emergency exceptions to bypass democratic accountability. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 980; Emergency measures become permanent once crisis is normalized. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 7; Democratic regimes channel contentious claims into prescribed institutional forms. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 447 (+1 more)