Emergency powers in democratic states: Introducing the Democratic Emergency Powers dataset

Abstract

This article discusses the content and causes of emergency powers in democratic states. It makes two main contributions. First, it introduces the Democratic Emergency Powers dataset, which codifies formal rules of institutional change during periods of emergency for all democracies from 1800 to 2012. These data are important because often state institutions in times of emergency differ dramatically from those in times of relative peace, and this influences government decision-making during times of crisis. I discuss the collection process and develop a measure of the latent strength in each of these emergency provisions. Second, this article examines the determinants of emergency power strength in democratic nations cross nationally. I find that previous and current conflict experience influence emergency power provision and strength, but also that domestic determinants have an impact on the types of instruments states institutionalize for times of emergency.

Democracy in times of the pandemic: explaining the variation of COVID-19 policies across European democracies

“…3 As we see in Table 1, almost all European democracies laid the foundations for such measures by responding with a national emergency plan that refers to a legal instrument. Since restrictions of democratic principles are seen as a rational response to buy time and space for the authorities to cope with a crisis (Bjørnskov and Voigt 2015), most states have the option to react with emergency provisions (Richards and Clay 2012;Rooney 2019).…”

Shock the system: Emergency powers and political capacity

“…Our key variable of interest is the strength of executive empowerment during a period of emergency. For this measure, we use data from Rooney (2019 b ), which includes 172 unique emergency power provisions in democracies over time. We have described above how emergency provisions exhibit substantial variation across both time and geographical space.…”

“…Nevertheless, some common components in these emergency provisions dictate the executive's level of control during a range of extraordinary crises. Rooney (2019 b ) argues that these components include the breadth of declaration, the existence, scope, and depth of policy powers, as well as limitations on powers via institutional oversight and the expiration of the policies and powers taken during the crisis, and analyzes these specific elements through Bayesian factor analysis using Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods. This produces a measure of latent emergency power strength, encompassing the extent to which the leader faces fewer constraints to her freedom of action in the event of dramatic political crises.…”

“…Modern emergency provisions find historical basis in the Roman Republic, where in times of national emergency, the Roman consuls would nominate a dictator to take action free from the standard political institutions, granting him nearly absolute power (Rossiter, 1948). This practice has both evolved and persisted over time, as from 1800 to 2012, 80 democracies adopted formal emergency provisions—accounting for over half of all democratic country‐years (Rooney, 2019b). Today, emergency provisions are common institutional features across democratic states with a variety of systems of governance, each designed to overcome restraints on necessary action during periods of national distress.…”

“…We test these hypotheses using data on states of emergency (Hafner‐Burton, Helfer, & Fariss, 2011) and emergency power strength (Rooney, 2019b) for democratic states from 1961 to 2005 and two aspects of government capacity—extraction and allocation—as captured by the Relative Political Capacity (RPC) data set (Kugler & Tammen, 2012). We find evidence that emergency power strength increases relative political extraction in periods of emergency, but that it only improves the allocation of resources during national political emergencies while hindering performance following extra‐territorial emergencies.…”