braeunert on agamben

Svea Bräunert
Position Paper on: Giorgio Agamben: Der Ausnahmezustand als Paradigma des Regierens.
In: ders.: Ausnahmezustand. (Homo sacer II.2). Frankfurt am Main 2004, S.7-41.

In his essay Der Ausnahmezustand als Paradigma des Regierens (State of Exception as a Paradigm for Governing), Giorgio Agamben looks at the phenomenon of Ausnahmezustand (I will be using the German term throughout this paper due to the fact that Agamben himself points out the importance of the underlying assumptions that go along with this very term) in its historical and current dimensions. By analyzing certain patterns in Western political philosophy as well as in political and juridical practices, he comes to the conclusion that since World War I the Ausnahmezustand has become the big paradigm of governing and modernity itself.

In AgambenĀ’s argumentation, the Ausnahmezustand is described as a borderline phenomenon. The borders between legislature, executive and jurisdiction are (momentarily) set out of order. Therefore, the Ausnahmezustand transgresses the borders of concepts such as politics and jurisdiction, jurisdiction and life itself. What we can see in the practice of Ausnahmezustand is the hidden and repressed relation between the law and violence. Therefore, the line between democracy and dictatorship, that is still imagined as being clearly drawn, is put into question. And it is precisely the definition as a borderline constellation, that makes the Ausnahmezustand such a powerful and dangerous category.

Agamben strives to unmask the Ausnahmezustand by trying to define the modes of transgression that it undertakes and defining the borderlines that it operates upon. He emphasizes the fact that the categories that are traditionally used when describing the nature of Ausnahmezustand, such as crisis, paradox and ambivalence, are transgressive themselves. Acts of state emergency are generally understood as Ausnahmen (exceptions/ dispensations) in times of political crisis. What makes them so ambivalent is the fact that in these acts, the law is being suspended in order to be protected from being suspended. Therefore, the Ausnahmezustand is presented as a legal form of something that logically can not be part of the legal system because it puts the system itself into question.

It is an understanding of Ausnahmezustand as the initial figuration rather than as the effect of crisis and ambivalence, that may allow us to flee the paradoxical conception of the paradox Ausnahmezustand itself. It is along these lines that Agamben demands a definition of Ausnahmezustand that is situated exactly on the borderline between the inside and the outside of the law and governing. Therefore, the Ausnahmezustand is located at a non-location, it is defined by being non-definable. That means that the Ausnahmezustand may not be understood as an objective category, but rather as a highly subjective construction: an Ausnahmezustand is one because it is declared as being one.

Agamben illustrates his analyses of the (historical) configuration of the Ausnahmezustand with different examples, especially the practices of governing in the Ā“Third ReichĀ” and the current acts of Ausnahmen undertaken by the Bush administration. One of the main parallels he sees in these practices of Ausnahmezustand is their biopolitical dimension: the Ausnahmezustand allows the physical elimination of people that are regarded upon as not fitting into the dominating system. In this scenario, these objects or bodies of exclusion are the ones that embody the Ausnahmezustand par excellence.

Taking these two examples, we may ask what they and their use of the construct of Ausnahmezustand tell us about Fritz LangĀ’s M and, vice versa, what M can tell us about these political configurations. M is set in the time of political crisis of the Weimar Republic. It is staging the scenario of Ausnahmezustand in the presentation of mass hysteria. At the same time, I would argue, it shows Beckert as the embodiment of Ausnahmezustand, due to the fact that he is transgressing the boundaries of the social and juridical norm in two ways: by violating the law in his position as a LustmĆ¶rder and/or serial killer, and by featuring a lack of masculinity that is questioning gender-relations that are stabilizing the dominant system of representation. Looking at this configuration, I would argue that in M the Ausnahmezustand is being declared in order to fight the Ausnahmezustand. Beckert and the Mob are therefore acting within the same system.

So, may LangĀ’s M be seen, after all, as an early commentary on a situation and political constellation that has accompanied us through the 20^th century and that we are still facing today? And, along the same line, when we take AgambenĀ’ s question: Ā“What does it mean to act politically?Ā”, and apply it to ourselves as active viewers of M: What does it mean to view politically and/or in a political context?