The Impact of Extraordinary Governance Measures on Law and Democracy

• In Event: Power, Politics, and Critical Theory

Abstract

We have entered the era of overlapping crisis (polycrisis). The authoritarian populist right-wing has rapidly reborn in the field of authoritarian state and emergency governance, moreover the COVID-19 crisis gave a new rise this phenomenon. The failures of liberal democracy, which can be called “neo-weimarization”, opened the way of authoritarian right-wing populism. The rise of authoritarian populism and the extraordinary measures of governance has fundamentally changed the relationship between law and politics. I will examine the impact of extraordinary governance measures (EGM) on democracy and the structure of law. The overlapping state of exception rise several dilemmas, since governing by extraordinary measures is not in itself undemocratic, but if the executive power primarily performs its tasks in an extraordinary manner, then this has very serious social and political consequences and this also leaves its mark on democracy. At the same time, governments have shifted strongly in a kind of crisis management direction, which provides incredible opportunities to govern by EGMs, but also takes us incredibly far away from any kind of political, social normality. In examining the practice of exceptional governance in autocracies, one of the most important directions is the impact of political governance on constitutionalism, the legal system, and the law itself. Under state of exception law becomes an instrument of political voluntarism and lose its autonomy.

Author

• Attila Antal, Eötvös Loránd University Faculty of Law