Facing the Systemic Crisis: The Divide in Criticism of the Pandemic State of Emergency

Abstract: The article shows how criticism of states of emergency during the COVID-19 pandemic divides into two camps: one complaining about the restriction of democratic processes, the other about the restriction of individual rights. The analysis of this divide exposes the specificity of the pandemic crisis as one without an enemy and as systemic in character. It highlights three aspects of the crisis responses in Western societies: First, the transboundary nexus of (restricted) rights; second, the adherence to an implausible concept of enmity; third, the disjunction of democracy and rights in the context of an authoritarian understanding of freedom.