Understanding the Contemporary Rise of Constitutional Dictatorship : A Schmittian Perspective

In 2007, state of emergency declarations were invoked in countries as varied as Pakistan, Georgia, Bangladesh and Ecuador. Increasingly, governments are invoking emergency powers to confront perceived threats to the constitutional order by marginalized groups within the state. For many scholars, the establishment of martial law is in clear opposition to the consolidation of liberal democracy. Yet, the governments declaring martial law often justify their actions by highlighting the rise of exceptional circumstances in which democracy itself needs to be protected from societal actors that threaten the state. Such a claim is often interpreted as paradoxical or false. However, in this paper we argue that in some of these examples of emergency rule a 'constitutional dictatorship' is actually being employed rather than a complete negation of constitutional rule. Drawing from the work of political theorist Carl Schmitt, we comparatively examine contemporary cases (Georgia, Pakistan, and the deviant case of Venezuela) of martial law employing the Schmittian concepts of 'the notion of emergency' and 'the president as the ultimate defender of the constitution.' Analyzing the rise of constitutional dictatorship enables us to better evaluate the legitimacy -- or illegitimacy -- of invoking emergency rule in the twenty-first century and its broader implications for democratic consolidation