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.

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.

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.

The Roman statesman Cincinnatus has long symbolized the constitutional principle that extraordinary powers should be exercised only when genuinely necessary and relinquished once the crisis has passed. His enduring legacy illustrates one of the oldest and most important safeguards of constitutional government: that emergency authority derives its legitimacy not only from necessity, but from its temporary character.