At the Forefront of Power: Interpellation and State of Emergency

Abstract

The growing reliance on exceptional legal measures and the proliferation of emergency modes of governance warrant a deeper theoretical investigation into the significance of the state of emergency. Legal thinking has generally perceived emergencies through a well-established paradigm that emphasizes their temporal and reversible character. The historical record of states of emergency, however, undermines the validity of this paradigm and raises questions about the long-term consequences of emergency regimes for society as a whole and for the individuals who live under them. This paper proposes to introduce the philosophical concept of interpellation as a tool for problematizing the mechanisms of the state of emergency and its effects. The concept of interpellation was developed by Louis Althusser to describe how ideology—including legal ideology—operates in relation to individuals. The aim of the paper is to reconstruct this theoretical framework and bring it to bear specifically on legal theory and on an analysis of the state of emergency. In doing so, it reframes the state of emergency from the perspectives of philosophical anthropology and historical materialism, thereby illuminating the effects of emergency rule not only on the law itself but also on the socio-political reality.

Keywords

ideology interpellation legal history Louis Althusser state of emergency

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