States of Emergency - Centre for Policy Alternatives

to make law because it is he who decides the fundamental or
existential issues of politics. So Schmitt’s understanding of the
state of exception is not quite a legal black hole, a juridically
produced void. Rather, it is a space beyond law, a space which is
revealed when law recedes leaving the legally unconstrained state,
represented by the sovereign, to act.” 60
Therefore, in exceptional situations, political decision‐makers
cannot be and are not constrained by
a
 priori
 rules. Politics and
not law, and political actors unconstrained by legality, constitute
the essence and only real actors in the sphere of the political. In
his view, “The speciLic political distinction to which political
actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and
enemy.” 61 Dichotomising between friends and foes as the basic
reducible political relationship means that conLlict is inevitable.
But the manifestation of this dichotomy in conLlict – its most
extreme form (i.e., the exception) – gives political life real
meaning: “The exceptional case has an especially decisive meaning
which exposes the core of the matter. For only in real combat is
revealed the most extreme consequence of the political grouping
of friend and enemy. From this most extreme possibility human
life derives its speciLically political tension.” 62 Moreover, since the
exception deLined in this way “…is sufLiciently strong to group
human beings effectively according to friend and enemy,” 63 every
aspect of human existence becomes political. Thus the extreme
case of the exception actually becomes the norm of human
existence.
60
Ibid
61
Schmitt (1976), op cit., p.26
62
Schmitt (1976), op cit., p.26
63
Ibid, pp.37, 38
58