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June 21, 2008
In theory, the liberal democratic state operated under two basic principles. The first of these was separation of powers. Legislative and executive action would be held to a standard of legality by the action of unelected and therefore presumably independent judges. The second principle is that certain invasions of individual personal liberty are forbidden, and that the judges will provide a remedy against those who commit such invasions.
It is It has been obvious for some time that these principles are in jeopardy. The suspension of the rule of law, the emergence of a permanent state of exception, abuses of authority, and the generalized condition of restriction of freedom in Western societies since 9/11 have become part of what is normal. Our world of liberal democracy is becoming a world constituted by the new anti-terrorism laws in the United States, Great Britain, and the European Union; the placing of certain groups of individuals outside the law (terrorists, enemy combatants, suspect airline passengers); the creation of exceptional procedures of containment, detention, and interrogation by government agencies; an ongoing and intensified regime of police surveillance inside Western societies, and ongoing American state of a global war against terror.
Hence the critique (based on the work of Schmitt, Agamben, and Hardt and Negri) of the so-called democratic state—from the United States to Europe to Australia —and of the transformation of liberal systems of constitutional governance into police, military, and security orders. The various lines of critique inform us that the state of exception in the making is in fact a new norm, a state of permanence.The state of exception created by emergency laws and other extra-constitutional decisions and actions in Western societies is indeed a permanent condition.
Jean-Claude Paye, in his Global War on Liberty, argues that:
the rule of law becomes increasingly formal, not only because its content, the protection of private life and the defense of individual and publicliberties, turns out to be very limited, but also by the practical possibility offered to the executive power to free itself completely from the last safeguards of legal order.... The strengthening of the executive relative to the other powers makes possible the general and permanent suspension of the law. It is the instrument for setting up a state of exception.
A new rule of permanence is also more than a suppression of democratic legal and judicial systems, and of the individual rights that these normally guarantee. A new rule of permanence of the suppression of the law gives way to the creation of a new normative system. A new normative order or political regime comes to life after the implementation of a permanent state of exception.
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Interested in your last statement - "A new normative order or political regime comes to life after the implementation of a permanent state of exception."
Very well stated.
Apply it to all systems, not just governmental - business, computer, online social networking, even friendships & families.