Welcome to the Institute for the Study of States of Exception on Substack
When temporary powers reshape permanent institutions.
It is with great excitement and renewed purpose that we bring the Institute for the Study of States of Exception (ISSE), a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit, to Substack.
For those who have followed our work, thank you. For those discovering ISSE for the first time, welcome. We are building a global community focused on one of the defining governance challenges of our time: the misuse and weaponization of emergency powers within constitutional systems.
Why Substack — and Why Now
Emergency powers are designed to be temporary. What happens when they are not?
ISSE was founded in response to a development that is no longer episodic, but patterned: the strategic expansion of executive authority under the banner of crisis.
Our website remains our principal research and archival hub. Substack allows us to bring our research and analysis into a more immediate and interactive public forum.
This is not a change in mission. It is an expansion of reach at a moment when the subject demands sustained scrutiny.
Why We Exist
States of exception are not inherently anti-democratic. Constitutional systems provide mechanisms for temporary departures from ordinary legal frameworks during genuine emergencies.
The concern lies in how those mechanisms evolve.
Across constitutional democracies, emergency powers are increasingly invoked in ways that shift the balance of authority more permanently toward the executive. Crises — whether genuine, exaggerated, or strategically framed — can become opportunities to concentrate power, limit oversight, and weaken institutions designed to provide constraint.
This process is rarely sudden or dramatic. It unfolds through extensions, technical revisions, and “temporary” measures that remain in place long after the immediate crisis has passed. At that point, courts defer more readily, legislatures play a smaller role, and authorities granted for exceptional moments begin to shape ordinary governance.
What begins as exception then risks becoming a permanent feature.
What We Do
ISSE examines how emergency powers are designed, justified, extended, and normalized — and under what conditions they serve legitimate public need or entrench shifts in institutional power.
We bring together academic scholarship across law, political science, philosophy, and history, while at the same time engaging directly those who operate within these systems — policy practitioners, judges, lawyers, journalists, individuals directly affected by emergency governance, and concerned citizens like you. This intersection of theory and practice allows us to analyze not only formal declarations, but the structural conditions under which temporary authorities become more enduring imbalances.
Through this work, we seek not only to clarify institutional fault lines and illuminate comparative lessons, but also to identify the legal and structural safeguards that can impede democratic backsliding while preserving legitimate emergency authority.
The Stakes
Democratic systems are shaped by how crises are managed. When emergency authorities are weaponized or normalized, institutional equilibrium shifts. The vocabulary of necessity expands, and the threshold for extraordinary measures lowers.
ISSE exists to study these developments with clarity and discipline: to distinguish legitimate necessity from opportunistic expansion, to map how emergency governance evolves, and to strengthen the intellectual foundations of democratic resilience under strain.
If this resonates with you, we invite you to follow our work, join the conversation, and share our Substack with others.
If you are able, consider supporting ISSE’s efforts or contributing your expertise to this growing international community.
We look forward to building this forum with you.
Ed Bogan
Founder/Board Chair
Institute for the Study of States of Exception