Table Of ContentPolitical Technology
and the Erosion of the
Rule of Law
Normalizing the State of Exception
GiinterFrankenberg
ProfessorofPublic Law, LegalPhilosophyandComparative
Law, Goethe University, Germany
ELGAR MONOGRAPHSIN CONSTITUTIONAL AND
ADMINISTRATIVE LAW
Edward Elgar
Cheltenham,UKeNorthampton,MA,USA
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©SuhrkampVerlagBerlin2014
PublishedinGermanasStaatstechnik:PerspektivenaufRechtsstaatund
Ausnahmezustand,Berlin:SuhrkampVerlag
©SuhrkampVerlagBerlin2010
TranslatedbyHarryBauerandGünterFrankenberg
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Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xiii
1. Acritiqueofpoliticaltechnology 1
1.1 Political technology, good governance and statecraft 1
1.2 Political technology as mindset 5
1.3 Political technology as method 7
1.4 Political technology of the security state 25
2. Visionsofpoliticaltechnology 30
2.1 Hobbes and the beginning of modern political
technology 30
2.2 Construction: Images of the Leviathan 34
2.3 Subversion: The Panopticon and the capillaries of
power 38
2.4 Deconstruction: From sovereign to democratic aesthetics 42
3. Constellationsoflaw-ruleandthestateofexception 51
3.1 From visual magic to polysemy 51
3.2 Origins, affinities and differences 54
3.3 The Rechtsstaat – a German ‘Sonderweg’ 61
3.4 The constitutionalization of the Rechtsstaat and the
state of emergency 71
3.5 The post-Nazi constellation: Locke unplugged, natural
law updated 78
3.6 Reinventing the state of exception as ‘protected
democracy’ 80
3.7 The form of law-rule versus the substance of the
welfare state 83
3.8 Rechtsstaat: All form – no justice? 91
3.9 The preventive state – a global formula 93
4. Thestateofexceptionasmindsetanddoctrine 97
4.1 The ambivalence of the liberal paradigm 97
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viii Politicaltechnologyandtheerosionof theruleof law
4.2 Apocalypse and the politics of fear: About Schmitt 100
4.3 From Schmitt towards Agamben: The bare state of
exception 112
4.4 Search movements: The repressed state of exception 115
4.5 Flirting with the state of exception: Imagining
worst-case scenarios 120
4.6 The decapitation of law-rule and Locke 136
4.7 State impotence and abuse as fixed points in the
mindset of emergency technicians 139
5. Politicalextremismandthemilitancyoflaw-rule 147
5.1 Protest, law-rule and fear 147
5.2 Hobbes, Locke and the freedom from fear 150
5.3 Preliminary considerations on the analysis of
politico-legal fears 152
5.4 The freedom from fear and rationality under law-rule 160
5.5 Manipulations of the legislative techniques of governing 166
5.6 Metalegality and the law of fear 174
5.7 The law of fear and ‘Meta-fundamental Rights’ 179
5.8 Meta-fundamental rights, metalegality and myth 183
6. Normalizingthestateofexception:Counter-terrorismand
‘whateverittakes’ 185
6.1 Terror as manipulative communication 185
6.2 Terrorism and the ‘new security architecture’ 187
6.3 The ‘normalization’of the state of emergency 189
6.4 The logic of militant law 192
6.5 The asymmetry between freedom and security 195
6.6 Militant law as special police law 198
6.7 ‘Enemy criminal law’and other phenomena of militant
law 207
6.8 Some effects of combat law and security mentality 216
7. Normalizingtortureasatechniqueofgoverning:What‘the
exigenciesofwar’demand? 221
7.1 The domestication of a taboo 221
7.2 A ‘return’to the ‘Middle Ages’? 226
7.3 The new paradigm? 230
7.4 Practical consequences of ‘rescue torture’ 238
7.5 The polysemy of torture and its abuses 245
Bibliography 252
Index 295
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Preface
One would expect to find neither angels nor paradise in secular societies;
rather one would be prepared to encounter conflicts of all kinds. In
pluralist societies dispute and dissent are ubiquitous. Rulers have a
tendency to dislike conflict and dissent. Therefore, the rule of law is
brought in, not to make the ‘powers that be’ like controversy, but to
prevent them from arbitrarily intervening in disputes and stifling dissent
as well as, incidentally, to keep the passions of civil society at bay.
Thereby law-rule – in the guise of the rule of law, Rechtsstaat or état de
droit – is widely credited with setting up a regime of distance.
In comparison with democracy, republic or human rights, law-rule
musters significantly less enthusiasm. ‘Democracy’echoes the desire for
participation by promising a government by the people. ‘Republic’stands
for accountability and transparency and, arguably, government in the
publicinterestandthelightofthepublic.Andhumanrightsaregenerally
regarded as the basis of government and are expected to prevent or
redress human suffering. In comparison with these rather popular ele-
ments of government, law-rule lacks glamour, although it is set up to
magically transform personal rule into an impersonal ‘government of
laws’and, as a theoretical component of self-government, to ensure that
rulers rule in the form of law, observe rights and exercise restraint – not
exactly a modest agenda.
Law-rule’sdiscretecharmbecomesapparent,though,onceoneturnsto
political regimes that know no legal constraints and claim extraordinary
powers by dint of emergency law under whatever pretext – curbing
terrorism and organized crime, defending the stability of the regime
against ‘extremist elements’, punishing traitors (preferably from foreign
countries), averting dangers or, more generally, providing security.
This book is about security. More to the point: how it happened that
torture turned out to be security’s companion and how the state of
exception revealed itself as the twin brother of law-rule – not in distant,
barbaric regions of the world but in our backyard, in consolidated
democracies and rule-of-law countries, like the United States, England
and Germany, where power is claimed and widely believed to be
civilized; at least: constrained by law. Throughout the last decade state
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