INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF STATES OF EXCEPTION

Former Justice Minister Park Sung-jae was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s failed December 2024 martial law declaration, marking another significant step in South Korea’s effort to hold senior officials accountable for the misuse of emergency powers. The case highlights how constitutional democracies can use judicial processes to reinforce democratic accountability, restore constitutional order, and deter future abuses of extraordinary authority.

In this provocative essay, Stephen Vladeck argues that a defining feature of the Roberts Court’s emergency docket jurisprudence has been an effort to preserve and reinforce the Supreme Court’s institutional supremacy, often at the expense of lower courts and Congress while enabling expansive exercises of executive authority. The article raises broader questions about whether exceptional authority can become concentrated within judicial institutions as well as executive ones, and how the normalization of extraordinary power across multiple branches of government may affect democratic accountability, institutional legitimacy, and the constitutional balance of power.

Russian-installed authorities in occupied Crimea have declared a regional state of emergency following sustained Ukrainian strikes on energy infrastructure and military logistics. ISSE examines the declaration through the lens of international humanitarian law, exploring how emergency powers operate under military occupation and why this case differs fundamentally from emergencies declared by sovereign governments.

Shruti Gokhale conceptualizes nostalgia as a political technology rooted in the condemned and traumatic legacy of India's 1975 Emergency. She argues that the BJP's public condemnation of the Emergency paradoxically reproduces its governing logics, allowing the unresolved violence of the past to persist as an active force shaping contemporary governance.

The President’s power to remove and control subordinate executive officers has sparked a constitutional debate that began in 1789 and rages on today.  Leading originalists claim that the Constitution created a “unitary executive” President whose plenary removal power affords her “exclusive control” over subordinates’ exercise of executive power.  Text assigning the President a removal power and exclusive control appears nowhere in the Constitution, however, and unitary scholars have instead relied on select historical understandings and negative inferences drawn from a supposed lack of independent regulatory structures at the Founding.  The comprehensive historical record introduced by this article lays this debate to rest...

On June 24, 2026, Venezuela declared a nationwide state of emergency following the most destructive earthquakes to strike the country in more than a century. ISSE examines the legal authorities invoked, the distinction between disaster-related and governance emergencies, and why even well-justified emergency powers should remain proportionate, transparent, and temporary.

In this Lawfare essay, George Croner examines recent court decisions addressing presidential authority to federalize the National Guard and considers what those rulings may mean for future invocations of the Insurrection Act, arguing that courts retain a critical role in reviewing whether presidents have satisfied the statutory conditions necessary to exercise extraordinary domestic emergency powers. The article explores how judicial oversight can serve as an important safeguard against the expansion and normalization of exceptional executive authority within ordinary constitutional governance.

Following nearly thirty-eight years of martial law, Taiwan undertook a decades-long process of reforming its security institutions while continuing to confront significant external security threats. This study demonstrates how constitutional systems can restore democratic oversight, civilian control, and institutional accountability after prolonged periods of exceptional governance, offering an important perspective on the long-term process of democratic recovery from emergency rule.

Using cross national cases, Johannes Thumfart discusses internet shutdowns (ISs) within the Just Securitization Theory (JST). Thumfart denies the legitimacy of the vast majority of ISs, while sketching four exception scenarios of ISs justification.  

On June 20, 2026, Bolivia declared a 90-day nationwide state of emergency after weeks of protests and road blockades disrupted fuel supplies, transportation, and access to essential services. ISSE examines the legal authorities invoked, the role of legislative oversight, and what the declaration reveals about how democratic governments use emergency powers during periods of prolonged political and economic crisis.

Yung Lin argues that Taiwan's civic-embedded public diplomacy (CEPD) offers a distinct post-authoritarian model of conflict resolution in East Asia. The article shows how CEPD strengthens domestic legitimacy while managing identity-based conflict through the normalization of Taiwan's international visibility.

Drawing on more than three decades of comparative evidence, this report argues that democratic governance strengthens national security by reinforcing institutional resilience, public trust, accountability, and effective crisis response, challenging the assumption that security requires weaker democratic constraints. The report provides an evidence-based framework for understanding how constitutional guardrails and democratic oversight contribute to long-term security while helping prevent the normalization of extraordinary executive authority.

Kate Gilbert examines how the Department of Justice’s report uses the language of ordinary bureaucracy to frame extraordinary political claims. The article raises questions central to ISSE’s work: how exceptional political logics become embedded within routine democratic governance and how expansive interpretations of Unitary Executive Theory may reshape democratic governance. 

How can the most expansive forms of the unitary executive theory function as a standing state of exception within constitutional law? ISSE puts the recent legal disputes over the revocation of security clearances and the attempted federalization of National Guard within a deeper theory of presidential power. 

Should the Supreme Court craft a new rule of constitutional law cementing presidential control over the executive branch of government? Using the case studies of recent democratic decline in Hungary, Poland, and Turkey, David M. Driesen unpacks the implications of expanding executive authority.

How has the use of presidential “czars” undermined Congress and the Constitution?  Dr. Mark J. Rozell discusses his newest book “Unitary Executive Theory: A Danger to Constitutional Government.”

Examining the Supreme Court’s consideration of the Trump v. Slaughter case, Peter J. Wallison argues that permitting presidents to remove officials from independent regulatory agencies without a cause would fundamentally alter the balance between Congress and the executive branch. Relevant to ISSE’s work, Wallison warns that subtle judicial reinterpretations of constitutional structure over time accumulate excessive concentrations of executive power.

Drawing on a comparative study of countries' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, Tom Ginsburg and Mila Versteeg argue that courts, legislatures, and subnational governments remained important constraints on executive power during emergencies. The article develops a typology of crises to show that different emergencies require different modes of governance and concludes that many emergencies are better governed through Madisonian checks and balances than Schmittian executive dominance.

Contrary to the “Decision of 1789” myth, history shows that the first Congress rejected the exclusive unitary model of the presidency—and thus the presidential removal power should be subject to more congressional control than recent Supreme Court decisions have held.

Cass R. Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule examine the past, present, and future of the unitary executive theory, exploring competing constitutional interpretations of presidential control over the executive branch. The article analyzes the Supreme Court's treatment of the doctrine, particularly in Seila Law, and assesses its implications for presidential authority, independent agencies, and the separation of powers.