How exceptional are states of exception in liberal democracies? During the two world wars, European governments suspended constitutional norms and granted themselves extraordinary powers in the name of national survival and public order. Yet emergency rule was not merely a temporary wartime deviation. As scholars such as Carl Schmitt, Giorgio Agamben, Nomi Claire Lazar and Eugénie Mérieau have argued, states of exception are deeply embedded within modern liberal democracies. In some cases, emergency mechanisms facilitated the transition from liberal democracy to dictatorship.
A state of exception may be broadly defined as the temporary and geographically limited suspension of individual and public rights and freedoms and of the separation of powers in response to a perceived crisis. It enables governments to exercise extraordinary powers beyond normal legal constraints. Sometimes these powers are clearly codified through legal categories such as “state of siege” or “martial law.” In other cases, exceptional rules operate through more ambiguous legal frameworks. What has become increasingly clear, however, is that such measures are not historical aberrations but structural features of modern governance.
The study of states of exception has traditionally been dominated by jurists and philosophers, whereas historians have rarely engaged with this phenomenon. This conference addresses this gap. Rather than focusing solely on legal doctrines or constitutional texts, the conference examines how states of exception were historically enacted, negotiated, and contested in practice, highlighting the concrete actors and institutions—both state and non-state—that enabled the suspension of normal legal order. The conference examines concretely what happened on the ground when states of exception were activated. Emphasis is placed on historically specific episodes, tracing how emergency measures were mobilized, enforced, and legitimized, revealing the mechanisms through which extraordinary powers reshaped political and social orders.
This workshop is organised within the framework of the ERC project STEXEU – “The Constitutional Road to Dictatorship: States of Exception and Authoritarianism in Europe, 1900-1939”. While the project focuses primarily on Europe, we invite contributions exploring the historical implementation of states of exception across different geographical contexts, both within and beyond Europe, and in a longer timespan (circa 1900-1945).
Drawing directly on the STEXEU analytical framework, the conference situates states of exception within the broader constitutional and institutional pathways toward authoritarianism. Contributions are encouraged to examine not only formal decrees but also the concrete practices, negotiations, and conflicts through which emergency powers were operationalized. By connecting legal texts with social, political, and institutional processes, the workshop seeks to show how states of exception contributed to the erosion of the rule of law and facilitated the rise of fascist or authoritarian regimes, while also exploring variation across time, space, and political contexts. Comparative and transnational perspectives are particularly welcome, as are studies that consider interactions between state and non-state actors in shaping exceptional governance.
We aim to publish a selection of the conference papers as a special issue or as an edited volume with a leading academic publisher. Participants will therefore be asked to submit a draft chapter prior to the workshop and to read the papers of fellow presenters in advance. We plan to organize the workshop as a discussion-based event, with substantial time devoted to collective feedback and exchange around the pre-circulated drafts. For this reason, the conference will have an exclusively in-person format.
Key Themes (indicative, not exhaustive):
- Historical case studies of specific states of exception in Europe and beyond
- Institutions of exception: military, judiciary, police, administrative bodies
- Non-state actors and the enforcement of exception (paramilitaries, militias, economic actors)
- Political elites, bureaucrats, and intellectuals as implementers of exceptional measures
- Targets of states of exception in the liberal metropoles (organized workers, ethnic minorities, colonized peoples, women and queer minorities, etc.)
- Circulations of actors, ideas and practices of states of exception from the colonies to the colonial cores
- Emergency powers and the erosion of the rule of law
- States of exception and pathways to authoritarianism or fascism
- Everyday practices of exception: local, regional, and sectoral perspectives
- Comparative and transnational perspectives on exceptional governance
Submission Guidelines
Please submit an abstract of 300 words and a short biographical note (maximum 150 words)
Deadline for submissions: 1 October 2026
Notification of acceptance:15 October 2026
Submissions should be sent to this Google form: https://shorturl.at/HMDpR
Funding
Limited funding may be available to support participants. Priority will be given to early-career scholars without access to institutional funding.