Paper's abstract

Marie Goupy, The Theory of the State of Exception by Carl Schmitt: Reaction and Solution to liberal Political Order.
This paper elaborates on the observation that the notion of the state of exception, and more generally the pattern of exceptionality, has become increasingly popular and trivialized in the political field. An-historical or metaphysical approaches of the notion defend the view that the concept is a timeless, classic correlate of all judicial-political orders. In response to this view, we argue that the concept of the state of exception, in its specific contemporary form, emerged in Germany during the interwar period, marked by great political instability and numerous crises and the rise of a movement against parliamentarism and liberalism. Carl Schmitt authored the first formulation of the State of Exception. At an interpretative level, the theory may be understood as a reaction against the liberal political order and its rationalist conception of order. But at a deeper level, Schmitt’s theory of the state of exception should be understood as an ambivalent solution to the crisis in the liberal order, which are also crisis of the liberal order. With Schmitt, situations of crisis thus became the unique and limited moment of politics.

Key Words : Carl Schmitt, liberalism
t. 58, 2015 : p. 355-371