Constitutional Dictatorships, from Colonialism to COVID-19

Abstract

In this article, I use the concept of constitutional dictatorship as a heuristic, as a way of thinking more explicitly about constitutional violence than is customary in comparative constitutional law. Constitutional dictatorship is an epic concept. It is capable of illuminating—and retelling—epic histories of constitutional law, of alerting us to commonalities in constitutional practices of domination—and thus of violence—that would otherwise remain shrouded in legal orientalism. The analysis aspires to make constitutional law strange again. To this end, I trace nomoi and narratives of constitutional dictatorship from colonialism to the coronavirus pandemic. Arguing against emergency scripts, I relate the idea of “emergency” to the everyday and both to coloniality. Mine is a rudimentary conceptual history—a Begriffsgeschichte—of constitutional dictatorship. I think of the empirical vignettes about crisis government in the colony/postcolony on which my comparative historical analysis is based as prolegomena to a critical theory of constitutional dictatorship.

Law and the political stakes of global crises: Lessons from development practice for a coronavirus world

“…For Mitropoulos (2021), law is relevant in the ways in which it structures the relationship between property and sovereignty, which then serves as a matrix through which the politics of the pandemic unfold (e.g., lockdowns vs. freedom). And for Meierhenrich (2021), law matters in the constitutional form given to executive violence, as well as the ways in which we might trace the continuities and changes of that form from colonialism to COVID‐19. Thus, as Maduro and Kahn put it, as a result of the crisis, “maintaining democratic accountability within the organization of the nation state may be the defining question of constitutional construction for the next generation” (Maduro & Kahn, 2020, p. 10).…”

Reproducing crises: Understanding the role of law in the COVID‐19 global pandemic

“…At a most obvious level, these questions direct our attention to discussions and disputes in the terrain of public law, constitutionalism, individual rights, international law, and public health policy. Governmental responses to the COVID‐19 pandemic have generated numerous legal, constitutional, political, and economic debates (Heimer & Davis, 2022; Meierhenrich, 2021). Public debates have been dominated by discussion on the role of emergency powers and executive orders, the suspension of individual civil liberties, the suspension of economic rules in order to guarantee the survival of the economy, and to stimulate recovery of economic growth and the social regulation of the home, of public spaces and of workplaces.…”

COVID-19 and the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program in Puerto Rico: Anti-Corruption, Fraud Prevention, and Punishment

“…Governmental responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have generated numerous legal, constitutional, political, and economic debates (Heimer and Davis, 2022; Meierhenrich, 2021). These public debates have been dominated by discussion on the role of emergency powers, executive orders, and the suspension of economic rules to guarantee the survival of the economy.…”