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The first book to introduce the concept of emergency powers to the study of International Organizations, to investigate the emergency politics of IOs in comparative perspective, and to examine why IOS are often reluctant to rescind such powers when the motivating threat as passed.

The European Union is increasingly shaped by emergency politics as a mode of rule. Other than the state of exception in domestic constitutions, emergency politics at the European level is largely unregulated—with important negative effects for the integrity and normative quality of the European Union's legal and political order. This article discusses whether and how a European-level emergency constitution could dampen the costs to constitutionalism by formally pre-regulating the assumption and exercise of emergency powers in the European Union. It proposes design principles that a European emergency constitution would need to meet in order to be desirable. They include prescriptions on who should declare an emergency and who should wield emergency authority up to what constitutional limit. While a European emergency constitution could theoretically alleviate some of the normative concerns about emergency politics, it is plagued by issues of implementation that only a fundamental constitutional overhaul of the European Union could address.

This article studies a conflict over two competing norms in which the actors demonstrated incompatible positions not through arguments, but through actions. During the SARS crisis, China and the World Health Organization (WHO) entered a norm conflict over the precedence of sovereignty or global health security. Both resorted to behavioural, not discursive contestation: while the WHO practically but not rhetorically challenged the sovereignty norm by acting according to the norm of global health security, China—without openly acknowledging it—contravened the basic principles of global health security by acting according to the overlapping sovereignty norm. Why and with what consequences do actors choose to contest norms through actions rather than words? The article accounts for the resort to behavioural contestation by pointing to the strategic advantages it offers for furthering a contentious norm understanding without facing the social costs of making it explicit. It furthermore highlights that behavioural contestation may feed back into and change the odds of discursive contestation as its practical effects provide rhetorical resources to (de-)legitimate one or the other position. The propositions are illustrated in the interactions of China and the WHO during the SARS crisis and the subsequent norm development. This article forms part of the special section of the May 2019 issue of International Affairs on 'The dynamics of dissent', guest-edited by Anette Stimmer and Lea Wisken.

This paper applies the concept of emergency powers to the crisis politics of international organizations (IOs). In the recent past, IOs like the UN Security Council, the WHO, and the EU have reacted to large-scale crises by resorting to assertive governance modes bending the limits of their competence and infringing on the rights of the rule-addressees. In contrast to rational and sociological institutionalist notions of mission creep, this paper submits that this practice constitutes 'authority leaps' which follow a distinct logic of exceptionalism: the expansion of executive discretion in both the horizontal (lowering of checks and balances) and the vertical (reduction of legal protection of subjects) dimension, justified by reference to political necessity. This 'IO exceptionalism', as argued here, represents a class of events which is observable across fundamentally different international institutions and issue areas. It is important not least because emergency politics tend to leave longer-term imprints on a polity's authority structures. This article shows that the emergency powers of IOs have a tendency to normalize and become permanent features of the institution. Thus IO exceptionalism and its ratcheting up represent a mechanism of abrupt but sustainable authority expansion at the level of IOs.

This paper applies the concept of emergency powers to the crisis politics of international organizations (IOs). In the recent past, IOs like the UN Security Council, the WHO, and the EU have reacted to large-scale crises by resorting to assertive governance modes bending the limits of their competence and infringing on the rights of the rule-addressees. In contrast to rational and sociological institutionalist notions of mission creep, this paper submits that this practice constitutes 'authority leaps' which follow a distinct logic of exceptionalism: the expansion of executive discretion in both the horizontal (lowering of checks and balances) and the vertical (reduction of legal protection of subjects) dimension, justified by reference to political necessity. This 'IO exceptionalism', as argued here, represents a class of events which is observable across fundamentally different international institutions and issue areas. It is important not least because emergency politics tend to leave longer-term imprints on a polity's authority structures. This article shows that the emergency powers of IOs have a tendency to normalize and become permanent features of the institution. Thus IO exceptionalism and its ratcheting up represent a mechanism of abrupt but sustainable authority expansion at the level of IOs.

Emergency Powers of International Organizations explores emergency politics of international organizations (IOs). It studies cases in which, based on justifications of exceptional necessity, IOs expand their authority, increase executive discretion, and interfere with the rights of their rule-addressees. This ''IO exceptionalism'' is observable in crisis responses of a diverse set of institutions including the United Nations Security Council, the European Union, and the World Health Organization. Through six in-depth case studies, the book analyzes the institutional dynamics unfolding in the wake of the assumption of emergency powers by IOs. Sometimes, the exceptional competencies become normalized in the IOs' authority structures (the ''ratchet effect"). In other cases, IO emergency powers provoke a backlash that eventually reverses or contains the expansions of authority (the "rollback effect"). To explain these variable outcomes, this book draws on sociological institutionalism to develop a proportionality theory of IO emergency powers. It contends that ratchets and rollbacks are a function of actors' ability to justify or contest emergency powers as (dis)proportionate. The claim that the distribution of rhetorical power is decisive for the institutional outcome is tested against alternative rational institutionalist explanations that focus on institutional design and the distribution of institutional power among states. The proportionality theory holds across the cases studied in this book and clearly outcompetes the alternative accounts. Against the background of the empirical analysis, the book moreover provides a critical normative reflection on the (anti) constitutional effects of IO exceptionalism and highlights a potential connection between authoritarian traits in global governance and the system's current legitimacy crisis.

Exploring emergency politics of international organisations (IOs), this title also studies cases in which, based on justifications of exceptional necessity, IOs expand their authority, increase executive discretion, and interfere with the rights of their rule-addressees. This 'IO exceptionalism' is seen in crisis responses of a diverse set of institutions including the United Nations Security Council, the EU, and WHO. Through six in-depth case studies, the text analyses the institutional dynamics unfolding in the wake of the assumption of emergency powers by IOs.

This article theorises the relationship of crisis and political secrecy in European public policy. Combining the literatures on crisis management and securitisation, it introduces two distinct types of crisis-related secrecy. (1) Reactive secrecy denotes the deliberate concealment of information from the public with the aim of reducing immediate negative crisis consequences. It presents itself as a functional necessity of crisis management. (2) Active secrecy is about substantive or procedural secrecy employed by authority-holders to implement their interests with fewer restraints. Here, secrecy is an instrument of crisis exploitation, reducing obstacles to extraordinary measures. This distinction is based on an understanding of authority-holders as simultaneous legitimacy- and discretion-seekers whose secrecy politics depend on the constraints and opportunities presented by crises. In order to illustrate active and reactive secrecy, the article uses examples from the euro crisis (Eurogroup summitry, ECB sovereign bond purchases) and the security crisis after 9/11 (terror lists).

This contribution contends that the European Union (EU) has taken an authoritarian turn in the past crisis decade, which needs to be systematically addressed in EU studies. Starting from an ideal-typical conception of scenarios for the EU's emergent political order, it argues that there has been a shift towards decisionist authority structures at both the domestic and the European level. On the one hand, the distinct European emergency politics that characterized the euro crisis have introduced traits of authoritarian rule in the EU's supranational governance. On the other hand, democratic backsliding and the rise of nationalist populism have prompted authoritarian and anti-European tendencies at the national level. The article claims that the developments are linked and mutually reinforcing – building a 'cycle of authoritarianism'. Given its dire consequences, EU studies need to reorient towards understanding the dynamic interplay of integration types and domestic politics and rethink questions of democratic legitimacy.

This article theorises the relationship of crisis and political secrecy in European public policy. Combining the literatures on crisis management and securitisation, it introduces two distinct types of crisis-related secrecy. (1) Reactive secrecy denotes the deliberate concealment of information from the public with the aim of reducing immediate negative crisis consequences. It presents itself as a functional necessity of crisis management. (2) Active secrecy is about substantive or procedural secrecy employed by authority-holders to implement their interests with fewer restraints. Here, secrecy is an instrument of crisis exploitation, reducing obstacles to extraordinary measures. This distinction is based on an understanding of authority-holders as simultaneous legitimacy- and discretion-seekers whose secrecy politics depend on the constraints and opportunities presented by crises. In order to illustrate active and reactive secrecy, the article uses examples from the euro crisis (Eurogroup summitry, ECB sovereign bond purchases) and the security crisis after 9/11 (terror lists).

Markus Patberg: Usurpation und Autorisierung: Konstituierende Gewalt im globalen Zeitalter. Frankfurt am Main / New York: Campus 2018. 978-3-593-50886-3