ABSTRACT

State of exception is one of those concepts in the politico-juridical vocabulary whose established popularity is not affected by their evident terminological uncertainty. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the emergence of what has been defined as the war on terror, academic production on the subject has been literally flooded by an imponent stream of contributions. In the last two decades, the succession of multiple and diversified emergencies have had a decisive impact in Western governmental systems and societies, which unsurprisingly reacted by strengthening their securitarian drives. In a rather disturbing fashion, liberal democracies tended increasingly to challenge the pressure brought by global crisis – from international terrorism to the current waves of migration – through the hardening of police measures and the consequent limitation of civil and political liberties.