Institute for the Study of States of Exception - Under Exception, Issue 03, November 18, 2025
UNDER EXCEPTION
It’s closer than you think.
ISSUE 03
November 18, 2025
Dear Readers,
Across the globe, emergency powers continue to move from temporary tools to entrenched modes of governance. Recent scholarship, events, and human rights reporting reveal how states—from Honduras to Egypt to Türkiye—are normalizing exceptional authority in ways that weaken oversight and civil liberties. This issue highlights key examples of that trend, along with resources clarifying the true legal limits of executive power in the United States.
Ed Bogan
Founder, Institute for the Study of States of Exception
ISSE ANNOUNCEMENTS
Upcoming Office Hours: During our next Office Hours session at 1:00 PM EST on Thursday, November 20, Jim Petrila (retired from the Central Intelligence Agency in late 2018) will lead a discussion on the IEEPA tariffs case following the November 5 oral arguments at the Supreme Court. While at CIA, Jim practiced in the Office of General Counsel for twenty-five years. More information on the IEEPA case and the upcoming oral arguments can be found on our website.
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 at future office hours, please add those to your note as well.
GLOBAL EVENTS
Emergency powers during COVID-19: when democracies stepped outside normal bounds (November 14, 2025). During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world invoked sweeping war-style emergency powers—locking down movement, controlling information, and centralizing authority. The event revealed how emergency governance, once triggered, can swiftly become normalized and pose long-term risks to civil liberties and democratic frameworks.
PODCASTS & VIDEOS
Giorgio Agamben: How the “State of Exception” Became the New Rule for Power (Philosopheasy, August 2025). This podcast explores Agamben’s thesis that emergency powers have shifted from rare exceptions to the standard mode of governance, tracing how modern states suspend laws and normalize crisis-management as everyday rule.
ACADEMIC LITERATURE
Analysis of Executive Decree PCM-29-22 (The State of Exception) (Matamoros, Méndez, & Licona, October 2023). This paper reviews Honduras’s Executive Decree PCM-29-22, finding that while the measure was justified as a response to extortion, over 95% of detentions were for minor offenses and only 1% linked to the stated crime. The authors argue that the extension of the emergency without adequate oversight or data transparency undermines the required standards of necessity, proportionality and legality.
Unpacking al-Sisi’s Threefold Populism through Giorgio Agamben’s State of Exception Following 3 July 2013 (Magued, June 2025). Shaimaa Magued examines how Egypt’s Abd‑el Fattah el‑Sisi regime has built a three-pronged populist strategy—combining a heroic national saviour image, a military-business-technocrat alliance, and widened legal repression—by operating within a sustained state of exception. The article argues that drawing on Agamben’s theory helps explain how emergency powers shift from temporary crisis tools to entrenched mechanisms of authority.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
What Trump Can and Can’t Do with the Insurrection Act — Demystifying the Most Ominous Law in America (If you can keep it - Insights (Protect Democracy), November 2025). Amanda Carpenter and Rebecca Lullo explain the real scope of the Insurrection Act, noting that while it allows a president to deploy federal troops under narrow circumstances, it does not authorize martial law, suspension of constitutional rights, or unlimited executive control. Their explainer stresses that invocation must meet strict legal criteria and remains bound by both judicial oversight and statutory limits.
Protected No More: Uyghurs in Türkiye (Human Rights Watch, November 2025). This report documents how the Turkish government has increasingly labeled Uyghurs as “public security threats,” assigning them arbitrary “restriction codes,” detaining them in degrading conditions, denying residency, and pushing for deportation—shifting from a haven to a de facto state of exception.
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