Im Niemandsland

Abstract

In his essay of 2003 Giorgio Agamben advanced the theory that the state of exception was the fundamental political strucure of our days. It is characterized by an executive power supplanting constitutional elements. Failing to mention Ernst Fraenkel, he quotes – in parts with the exact wording – Fraenkel’s theory of the »Dual State«, and goes further than this theory on the characteristics of the Dual State by attributing to the state of exception a legal vacuum in the meaning of an »extralegal field of action«. Evidence for this theory is taken from barely convincing historical and literary material and is not supported by a clear analysis of legal notions. Agamben’s response to the political and legal dilemma of the dominating power of the overblown executive, by developing a »purpose-free« realisation of a »pure law«, can only be the fruit of Agamben's purely aesthetic point of view, trying to implant Benjaminian Messianity into post-modern realities.