Prerogative

State of exception

Politics

Algorithm

Liberal democracy

Political science

State of emergency

Decree

Computer science

Democracy

State (computer science)

Authoritarianism

German Law Journal

Is the Covid-19 pandemic changing the constitutional-power structures of our democracies? Is this centennial public health emergency irreversibly constraining our liberties? The paper examines recent state-measures of containment during the initial phase of spread of the Covid-19 crisis. It compares primarily the Italian scenario with the Chinese and the American one. It asks whether the measures adopted particularly in the Italian case (known as DPCMs) amount to a state of exception or to a use of emergency powers. Cognizant of the authoritarian risks in severed enjoyments of constitutional rights, the authors conclude that this is not what occurred in the case of solid democracies. At the level of governmental analysis, the “decree” strategy of the Italian DPCMs allude to paternalistic forms of power-exercise that empty the self-determining prerogative of the parliament.

The “War” Against Covid-19: State of Exception, State of Siege, or (Constitutional) Emergency Powers?: The Italian Case in Comparative Perspective