INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF STATES OF EXCEPTION

Özgür Salmanoğ examines how Turkey's 2016–2018 state of emergency enabled thirty-seven executive decree-laws that extended well beyond responding to the failed 2016 coup, reshaping state institutions while weakening legislative and judicial constraints. The article demonstrates how temporary emergency authorities can become mechanisms of lasting institutional transformation, showing how exceptional governance may persist through the structures it leaves behind even after the formal emergency ends.

Trinidad and Tobago has ended a prolonged state of emergency after nearly two years of extraordinary security powers while proposing permanent legislation to replace aspects of the emergency framework. The case highlights an important question in emergency governance: whether temporary exceptional measures truly end, or instead become embedded within ordinary legal institutions.

Ukraine offers a critical case for the comparative study of emergency powers: a constitutional democracy confronting a genuine existential threat while operating under prolonged martial law. This article uses the Ukrainian experience to show that the central democratic challenge of a long emergency is not simply the existence of extraordinary powers, but whether institutions can keep them lawful, necessary, proportionate, accountable, and ultimately reversible.

This article examines how Belgium's 1916 emergency legislation expanded executive authority during World War I despite a constitutional prohibition on suspending the Constitution. Through archival research, it argues that the legal justification for exceptional powers rested not only on military necessity but also on broader political objectives aimed at preserving state authority, maintaining public order, and shaping the postwar constitutional landscape.

This article develops the concept of “legalized lawlessness” to explain how exceptional power can become embedded within ordinary law, bureaucracy, and administrative governance rather than appearing only through formal states of emergency. Drawing on Schmitt, Agamben, and Arendt, it shows how the normalization of extraordinary authority can diffuse responsibility, weaken public judgment, and transform the exception into a durable feature of political life.

Twenty-five years after September 11, this Miller Center discussion examines how the attacks reshaped presidential power, emergency governance, and the constitutional balance between the executive, Congress, and the courts. The conversation explores how emergency authorities evolved across successive administrations and why distinguishing genuine emergencies from the long-term normalization of exceptional powers remains one of the defining constitutional challenges of our time.

This interdisciplinary volume explores how public health, digital governance, surveillance, and constitutional authority increasingly intersect through the legal framework of emergency and exception. Spanning law, political theory, medicine, and technology studies, it examines how temporary emergency measures can become embedded within ordinary governance, reshaping the relationship between the state, the body, and fundamental rights.

On August 26, 2026, President Trump declared a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to address perceived national security risks associated with foreign-produced equipment used in the U.S. bulk-power system. Our article examines how the declaration expands executive authority over critical infrastructure and illustrates the growing use of emergency powers to address supply chain security and strategic technological vulnerabilities.

Comparing Hungary and Poland, this article argues that the depth of democratic backsliding depends not only on populist politics but on whether governing parties acquire sufficient constitutional authority to permanently reshape the rules of political competition. It offers an important contribution to debates over constitutional resilience, executive aggrandizement, and the legal mechanisms through which democratic erosion can become increasingly difficult to reverse.

Through a comparative analysis of Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, this paper examines the institutional mechanisms driving democratic erosion, including executive aggrandizement, autocratic legalism, judicial restructuring, media capture, and securitization. It argues that contemporary constitutional transformation increasingly occurs through gradual legal and institutional change rather than overt constitutional rupture, offering an important framework for understanding how exceptional forms of governance can become normalized over time.

Five years after President Kais Saied invoked emergency powers and suspended Tunisia’s parliament, this article examines the country’s subsequent shift toward concentrated executive rule, political repression, international isolation, and economic vulnerability. It also considers how the United States and Europe might reengage Tunisia and support reform while confronting the lasting institutional consequences of a state of exception that evolved into a broader transformation of constitutional governance.

The Brennan Center’s Joseph Nunn examines the prolonged deployment of National Guard forces in Washington, D.C., arguing that the more significant constitutional issue is not the initial invocation of emergency authority but the normalization of a sustained military role in civilian governance. The article explores broader questions about the temporal limits of emergency powers, the domestic use of military forces, and the constitutional risks that arise when exceptional measures become part of ordinary government practice.

This podcast by Blood Work provides an accessible and in-depth introduction to Achille Mbembe's theory of necropolitics, exploring how sovereignty, violence, and exceptional power shape the conditions under which some lives are protected while others become exposed to abandonment or death. By situating Mbembe's work within the broader traditions of Schmitt, Foucault, and Agamben, the discussion offers valuable context for understanding contemporary debates about states of exception, emergency governance, and the exercise of sovereign power.

Janos Mark Szakolczai examines how information generated during seemingly ordinary or peaceful conditions can become a latent instrument of coercion, surveillance, and warfare when political circumstances change. Drawing on the concept of capta, Agamben’s state of exception, and examples ranging from the Prague Spring to contemporary AI-enabled security systems, the article explores how exceptional powers can become embedded in enduring data infrastructures long after the circumstances that produced them have changed.

The Financial Times featured the Institute for the Study of States of Exception in its August 10, 2026 international edition as part of a front-page article examining contemporary debates over executive power and democratic governance. ISSE's contribution focused on the Institute's nonpartisan research into emergency powers and our ongoing analysis of the legal authorities that could be invoked during a future U.S. election-related crisis.

This article introduces the concept of "digital preparedness" to explain how emergency-driven digital infrastructures created during the COVID-19 pandemic can become permanent features of ordinary governance, reshaping the relationship between data, executive authority, and individual rights. Through a detailed case study of Norway's preparedness registry, the authors explore how crisis responses may accelerate lasting institutional and regulatory change, offering a new framework for understanding exceptional governance in the digital age.

Through the Polish Kamiński and Wąsik case, Michał Stambulski develops the concept of "sovereign presidential lawfare," examining how constitutionally grounded presidential powers can be used to reshape the balance between the executive and judiciary without formally changing the constitutional order. The article offers a valuable framework for understanding how exceptional executive authorities may gradually transform democratic governance through legally authorized but structurally significant interventions.

Drawing on Poland's own experience recovering from democratic backsliding, investigative journalist Wojciech Cieśla examines the institutional challenges Hungary faces following the end of Viktor Orbán's sixteen years in power. The article explores the difficult process of rebuilding courts, media, and constitutional institutions after prolonged executive consolidation, offering important insights into how democracies recover from periods of exceptional governance.

This article by ISSE Research Fellow Yuvraj Tuli, published in Just Security, examines how courts should distinguish between legitimate national security judgments and the use of national security authorities as a pretext for unrelated political or administrative objectives. It explores when judicial deference to executive claims of national security is warranted, and when constitutional accountability requires more searching judicial review.

This article examines El Salvador's prolonged State of Exception, arguing that while extraordinary emergency powers may have been legally justified when first adopted to confront unprecedented gang violence, their continued renewal after the crisis has substantially diminished raises serious constitutional and international legal concerns. The article explores one of the defining questions of emergency governance: when temporary emergency powers cease to be exceptional and instead become part of ordinary government.