Research framework and broader academic knowledge base
Serbia: documented application of the same framework
How do those in power use war, a pandemic, or another major crisis to expand their authority?
War, pandemic or major security crisis can justifiably require faster decisions and temporary restrictions, but at the same time reduce the usual space for government control. The executive power can take over the powers of the assembly, limit assembly and movement, expand surveillance, shorten public debate and mark the data as secret.
Citizens in fear more easily accept measures whose price in peacetime would be more seriously checked. The danger is not only in the first decision, but in who determines that the threat is still ongoing and who checks for abuse. Democratic protection exists when measures are necessary for a specific danger, proportionate, publicly reasoned, time-limited and under the actual control of the court and assembly that can say “no”.
Special measures may be really necessary in a crisis. It is important whether they are necessary, proportionate, time-limited, public and controlled by an independent.
Works supporting this answer, with their evidence type and an explanation of how they relate to the claim.
comparing several countries or cases
Gross, O. i Ní Aoláin, F. (2006), Law in Times of Crisis: Emergency Powers in Theory and Practice, Cambridge University Press.
- Contribution to this answer
- Gross and N Aoláin show why the crisis can really require faster and wider state powers, but also why the emergency regime creates special legal and institutional risks. The key is how the powers are limited and who decides when the exception stops.
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Scheuerman, W. E. (2006), „Emergency Powers“, Annual Review of Law and Social Science 2: 257–277.
- Contribution to this answer
- Scheuerman shows that the executive power has strong incentives to declare, extend and politically benefit emergency situations. That is why the duration and control of emergency powers is a central democratic problem.
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Ginsburg, T. i Huq, A. Z. (2018), How to Save a Constitutional Democracy, University of Chicago Press.
- Contribution to this answer
- Ginsburg and Huq provide a broader framework: a crisis can ease the weakening of constitutional restrictions, rights and institutional responsibilities if the exception becomes a justification for the continued strengthening of executive power.
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Haggard, S. i Kaufman, R. R. (2021), Backsliding: Democratic Regress in the Contemporary World, Cambridge University Press.
- Contribution to this answer
- Haggard and Kaufman show a wider pattern of democratic backwardness through polarization and gradual weakening of government restrictions. For extraordinary powers and crises, this work is indirect.
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Lührmann, A. (2021), „Disrupting the Autocratization Sequence: Towards Democratic Resilience“, Democratization 28(5): 1017–1039.
Lührmann, A. (2021), "Disrupting the Autocratization Sequence: Towards Democratic Resilience", Democratization 28(5): 1017–1039.
- Contribution to this answer
- Lhrmann shows that autocracy is not an inevitable outcome of a political crisis: the process has several stages and can be interrupted by resistance from institutions, the opposition and society. The crisis opens the possibility, but does not determine the result.
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