Giorgio AgambenState of Exception

This amazing work reviews the historical development of the state of exception. The question is, if we can place this state of exception inside the sphere of the law and in what range it is applicable. The conclusion could be that all democracies in our time live partly in the state of exception by a predominantly system of safety and security in which rules and mechanisms become the status of lawful actions. This should provoke a very critical perspective on the state of our 'western' democracies.

Arrived on time. It was like described.

wonderful, erudite and philosophically informed introduction to what Agamben calls the "state/s of exception"...

great thanksxxx

all time classic!

Thank you

In this book Agamben explains what the 'state of exception is' - a suspension of civil liberties so the executive part of the government can do what is needed to save the state. The law is suspended and a period of un-law (?) is used to restore orderly conditions in which law can return. When I first read this (in the wake of the 2nd Iraq war) the idea of the state of exception was new to me. It rather suits his point that that bell has barely stopped ringing since then!After this Agamben notes several points, briefly: 1) the first modern appearance is during the French Revolution. 2) lots of European countries (and America) used it during WWI and it found it hard to lose the habit in the 20s and 30s. 3) the state of exception is managed and applied differently in different legal systems. This section (pp.11-22) is a bit of throat-clearing for him.Once these notices are out of the way, he launches on three separate issues that he clearly thinks important:1) the big question - when the law suspended is there a period of legal purity when new law can be founded? Lots of lawyers are cited on each side, but this seems to be conclusively addressed by ...2) the big debate - Carl Schmitt thought it was a legal measure overseen by a sovereign but Walter Benjamin argued that the suspension of the law inaugurated a pure point of revolution that always exposed the insufficiency of sovereigns not their mastery. His big claim here is proposing that Schmitt's theories were responses to Benjamin's arguments (as in Benjamin's 'Critique of Violence').3) the deep historical background - in the Roman Empire the Emperor absorbed the authoritative aspects of the state and became the 'living law'. Deaths in the imperial family were both personal and public and were seen as a 'state of exception' in which laws were suspended. Agamben likens this to festivals/holidays in which normal service is disrupted, so as to let off steam, ensuring the law is authoritative when it returns. He clearly values this erudite section, but I'm not sure what it contributes. Is it that the state paradoxically benefits from a bit of legal exception?Agamben is a lapidary writer who is not prone to waffle. The book is short (88pp of text) but very clearly set out. He is interested in this subject because it is one of a set of anomalous points where the normal categories cease to apply and seem to collapse in on themselves. Logic and reason fail to get to grips with things like the state of exception (the living law). Such anomalous points incite intense academic analysis, which he likes, but he is invested in working out ways of using such points to loosen the grip of the state and its traditional justifications, as otherwise the state seems to be tightening its grip.

Individual pages fall out when gently flipping through book. Very poor manufacturing quality! Not worth the retail price given how flimsy the book is.

an excellent book!

The State has employed from time to time a political action by declaring an emergency and suspending the laws and/or Constitutions of the country. This state of emergency is what Agamben calls the “State of Exception.” Readers will be familiar with declaring a state of emergency more from the results of a natural disaster, such as a catastrophic forest fire, or, as readers from California are most familiar with now, a prolonged drought.This is not the emergency Agamben means. He is mainly concerned with states of emergency precipitated from social or political events. For instance, Napoleon declaring a state of siege due to the Reign of Terror. More modernly, Agamben discusses the state of exception with regards to the current War on Terror.Agamben examines the historical record and customs of the European countries with regard to these emergency measures. The state of exception has different names in different countries.In Germany it was Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, employed by Hitler to gain absolute power.In Switzerland it was a Constitutional provision giving the federal government power to take all measures to “guarantee security.”In Italy it was a provision of emergency executive decrees.In France it was the suspension of rights whenever there was a “state of siege.”In England, it was the institution of martial law.Here in the United States it is Article I of the United States Constitutional which provides for the suspension of habeas corpus in times of insurrection. This provision has morphed, recently, into the “War on Terrorism;” the suspension of all rights, not simply to habeas corpus, to persons providing “material support” to terrorists; and other features not mentioned by Agamben, such as the concept of the “unitary executive,” granting near dictatorial power to the Executive; the declaration of “permanent war” — a de facto state of exception — on terrorism; and the term “War on Terrorism” itself. The list could go on and on.Agamben sees many dangers with these sovereign powers. One, his historical analysis demonstrates that once granted, these powers are rarely withdrawn voluntarily. Two, if they are withdrawn, the reason is usually due to factors other than the reason these emergency powers were invoked, such as in the complete breakdown of the governmental apparatus, whether through war, Nazi Germany being an extreme example, or otherwise. Three, these sovereign powers are detrimental, if not positively antithetical, to the concept of a functioning democracy. And, four, while the historical record demonstrates these emergency powers were infrequently invoked, more contemporaneously they are the rule rather than the exception, whether invoked by traditional democratic or totalitarian States.While Agamben does not employ this terminology, the State of Exception is a cancer to democratic institutions. Again, this is certainly true of Germany, when, as Agamben reminds us, Hitler’s actions after he obtained power, while horrific, were all “legal,” and within the bounds of his legal emergency powers.Agamben’s book, then, is a word of caution. It is Agamben’s way of warning that a state of exception, once invoked, is a slippery slope, having its own costs to democracy.

It is a sophisticated work.

Agamben's State of Exception is an extraordinary work in several ways. It is superbly written, which is critical to the task of conveying such a complex subject. Agamben weaves his topic of 'exception' through philosophical, legal and historical frameworks, and succeeds in demonstrating how the topic must be viewed from multiple angles. Yet it is not simply from different 'view points' that Agamben argues; he presents his thesis with an abundance of knowledge - indeed erudition. This work is clearly of contemporary relevance, and Agamben amply demonstrates this. Yet he instructs the reader on how deeply historical and increasingly diffuse the topic is, extending to the political theory of Roman and Greek thinkers, and tracing the continuity of thought to present thinkers, and to events that bring the topic right into the living rooms of us all.

Agamben is a great writer. Nice survey of Western governments throughout history. It's a response to Schmitt's idea of "state of exception," so being familiar with that first makes the experience better! Genuinely had fun reading it.