État d’exception et dictature

Abstract

Political and legal studies have recently reintroduced the theory of constitutional dictatorship. According to some, this paradigm is particularly accurate in what concerns the measures taken by today’s democracies in order to fight terrorism. The purpose of this paper is to consider some of the most distinctive features of this paradigm, among which figures eminently the reference to Roman dictatorship and criteriological ways of distinguishing constitutional from unconstitutional dictatorship. As it appears, Roman dictatorship is barely an adequate reference, the analogy with modern emergency powers being rather doubtful. And even if it were possible to articulate, from an over-idealized conception of Roman dictatorship, a consistent paradigm of the modern state of emergency, it seems that this paradigm would fail to account for the recent political and constitutional evolutions.

Keywords

• dictatorship
• state of emergency
• emergency powers
• Constitution
• terrorism