Institute for the Study of States of Exception - Under Exception, Issue 01, October 16, 2025
UNDER EXCEPTION
It’s closer than you think.
ISSUE 01
16 OCTOBER, 2025
Dear Readers,
Welcome to our inaugural newsletter for the Institute for the Study of States of Exception. From El Salvador to South Korea to Washington and beyond, government leaders are increasingly exploiting or outright fabricating crises in order to expand their executive authority. As a result, rule of law is being put to the test. The Institute serves as a global hub, where rigorous scholarship meets real-world practice, bringing together researchers, policy practitioners, and engaged citizens to monitor and analyze these abuses, and then work to strengthen our guardrails.
This newsletter will be a key medium for growing our community and keeping you informed with timely analysis, research updates, and opportunities for meaningful dialogue on this critical trend.
We're glad you're here, and we look forward to building this community together.
Ed Bogan
Founder, Institute for the Study of States of Exception
ISSE ANNOUNCEMENTS
ISSE Office Hours: The ISSE team will hold our inaugural Office Hours on Thursday October 30 at 1:00 PM EST. ISSE Office Hours is an hour long Google Meet session that we host once a month. The event is now open to ISSE Newsletter subscribers and is a way for members of the ISSE community to get together and discuss the topics of states of exception and current events in a small group.
If you are interested in joining, please send a note to officehours@statesofexception.org and we will add you to the list and send you a calendar invite. If you have suggestions for topics you want to discuss, please add those to your note as well.
Podcast Coming Soon: ISSE is launching the first episode of our upcoming podcast in November 2025. Stay tuned for more information on the podcast’s first guest and topic of discussion.
GLOBAL EVENTS
Executive Emergency Powers and the U.S. Tariff State: Review in the U.S. Court of International Trade and the Federal Circuit: In late August, a federal appeals court struck down President Trump’s attempt to use emergency powers to impose tariffs, ruling he exceeded his authority. The Supreme Court will hear the case on November 5, testing how far presidents can go in reshaping trade policy during declared crises.
Declaration of a crime emergency in the District of Colombia: President Trump’s August 2025 “crime emergency” briefly placed local policing under federal control before a legal compromise restored local authority. The episode highlights enduring tensions between emergency powers and democratic governance.
PODCASTS & VIDEOS
Can the president declare a national emergency without limits? (UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, June 2025). In this It’s the Law episode, Chemerinsky argues that even in crises, the Constitution constrains presidential authority—and asks what true limits on executive power look like.
ACADEMIC LITERATURE
Converging Histories: South Korea’s Martial Law Crisis in a Global Conjunctural Frame (Jamie Doucette, July 2025). Doucette examines President Yoon’s December 2024 self-coup attempt through a “global conjunctural” lens, showing how Cold War and neoliberal legacies shape South Korea’s current constitutional crisis.
Short-term Security or Long-term Democratic Stability? Evidence from Ecuador’s war on gangs (Juan Masullo & David Morisi, June 2025). Masullo and Morisi find that Equadorian support for militarized crackdowns drops sharply once citizens learn their democratic costs.
Partisan Emergencies (Nathaniel Glass, April 2025). Glass warns that presidents can exploit emergency powers amid partisan conflict and argues courts must test not only how those powers are used—but whether the declared emergency is legitimate.
Administrative Law as a Mockery of the Constitutional Controls of State of Exception: Colombia, Covid-19 and Obligatory Preventative Lockdown (David Anzola Galindo, April 2025). Galindo shows how Colombia’s pandemic decrees bypassed constitutional safeguards, undermining judicial review and restricting freedom of movement.
Emergency Provisions and Constitutional Safeguards in India (Sakashi Gupta, July 2025). Gupta’s chapter of Contours of Contemporary Legal Research: Foundations and Frontiers of Public Law surveys India’s emergency provisions—national, state, and financial—highlighting how courts, parliament, and rights protections strive to prevent abuse while balancing security and liberty.
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