Carl Schmitt was a significant 20th-century German legal and political theorist whose work has had a lasting impact on the study of political power and sovereignty. The phrase "Sovereign is he who decides on the exception" is perhaps one of his most famous and influential statements, encapsulating a key aspect of his political theory.
This statement comes from Schmitt's book "Political Theology," where he discusses the concept of sovereignty. Schmitt defines the sovereign as the authority that has the power not just to enforce the law but to suspend it; the sovereign can declare a state of exception or emergency, wherein normal laws and procedures are put on hold, and the sovereign can take actions that would otherwise be outside the scope of their legal powers.
Schmitt's definition of sovereignty here is one that does not rest on the regular, day-to-day functioning of the law but on the ability to transcend the law in extraordinary times. For Schmitt, the moment of exception reveals the true nature of power because it shows that the law ultimately depends on the decision of a sovereign authority rather than an autonomous legal or moral order. The sovereign's decision to declare a state of exception thus exposes the limits of legal formalism and the reality of political power.
The state of exception is a critical concept in Schmitt's work because it is in this state that the sovereign's authority is most apparent. It is a crisis situation in which the laws that usually structure political life are inadequate, and decisive action must be taken to restore order or address the emergency. The sovereign's decision in such a moment is what constitutes the law, rather than any pre-existing statutes or norms.
Schmitt's ideas on sovereignty and the state of exception are controversial, not least because of his involvement with the National Socialist regime in Germany. His theories have been interpreted as providing a rationale for dictatorial power and for the suspension of democratic liberties under certain conditions. However, his work also provides a tool for understanding how states operate, especially in times of crisis, and how the law is related to the concentration of power.
In modern political discourse, Schmitt's notion of the state of exception has been used to analyze various situations where governments have claimed extraordinary powers—such as during wars, natural disasters, or terrorist attacks—to bypass normal legal processes and civil rights protections. His work has influenced numerous legal and political theorists, especially those interested in the nature of emergency powers, the limits of constitutional authority, and the relationship between law and sovereign power.
The idea that "Sovereign is he who decides on the exception" continues to be a point of reference and debate in legal and political theory, as it raises fundamental questions about the nature of law, the locus of political authority, and the conditions under which the rule of law may be suspended. Schmitt's concept of the state of exception remains a provocative and challenging aspect of his broader critique of liberal democracy and the Enlightenment tradition in legal and political thought.
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