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Authority after Emergency Rule
Author(s) -
White Jonathan
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the modern law review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.37
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1468-2230
pISSN - 0026-7961
DOI - 10.1111/1468-2230.12130
Subject(s) - polity , discretion , politics , compromise , rule of law , context (archaeology) , political science , law and economics , order (exchange) , law , business , economics , paleontology , finance , biology
In the context of economic crisis, E urope has witnessed a spate of extraordinary political measures pressed by executive discretion. This article examines what emergency rule of this kind implies for the possibility of normal rule thereafter. Political decision‐makers face the challenge of drawing a line under the crisis so that the unconventional measures used to handle it do not compromise the polity's norms in lasting fashion. Based on an analysis of the preconditions for plausibly making such an act of separation, I suggest the principal resources for doing so in the EU case are missing. Emergency rule will tend to blend in with normal rule, to the detriment of the political order's legitimate authority. A more dubiously grounded ‘descriptive’ authority may conversely be enhanced by emergency rule, as may compliance for instrumental motivations, producing a polity that is stable even if weakly legitimate.