Anne-Marlen Engler – Demokratie im Ausnahmezustand

KrimJ: Die Empirie von Ausnahmezuständen

Ausriss aus der Homepage des Kriminologischen Journals (KrimJ).

In der Ausgabe 4/2019 des Kriminologischen Journals werde ich mit “Die Empirie von Ausnahmezuständen. Grenzziehungen zwischen Demokratierettung und Normalisierung” einen Debattenbeitrag über den Begriff des Ausnahmezustandes veröffentlichen. Anknüpfend an Überlegungen von Andrea Kretschmann und Aldo Legnaro (KrimJ 3/2018) sowie Anne-Marlen Engler (KrimJ 2/2019) versuche ich darzustellen, wie eine analytische Erschließung von Ausnahmezuständen und ihrer Auswirkungen auf demokratisches Regieren gelingen kann.

Der deutschsprachige Abstrakt des Beitrages lautet:

Ausnahmezustände sind komplexe gesellschaftliche Prozesse der Krisenreaktion, die rechtliche und politische Praktiken miteinander verbinden. Um sie angemessen empirisch analysieren zu können, bedarf es einer mehrdimensionalen, auf den öffentlichen Diskurs fokussierenden, langfristig angelegten Forschungsstrategie. Nur so lässt sich beobachten, wie und unter welchen Umstanden ein konkreter Ausnahmezustand Demokratie unterminiert.

Schlüsselwörter: Ausnahmezustand, Demokratie, Analyse, Normalisierung

The abstract in English:

States of exception can be understood as complex social processes of crisis reaction consisting of legal and political elements. An appropriate, empirically based understanding requires a multidimensional approach focusing mainly on a longterm analysis of public discourse. Such an approach will help to better understand the circumstances, ways and conditions under which a specific practice of state of exception undermines democracy.

Keywords: State of exception, Democracy, Analysis, Normalization

Das Heft erscheint voraussichtlich im Dezember 2019. Der Beitrag kann als Lemke, Matthias: Die Empirie von Ausnahmezuständen. Grenzziehungen zwischen Demokratierettung und Normalisierung. In: Kriminologisches Journal (KrimJ), 51(4), 290-299 zitiert werden.

New Normality? – Abstract #8

Anne-Marlen Engler: Shifting the Question to Law Itself: Agamben’s Permanent State of Exceptionand German Refugee Camps in Empirical Research.

The article examines to what extent Giorgio Agamben’s idea of a permanent state of emergencycan be found in German refugee camps. Therefore, first results from empirical research in the emergency shelter at Tempelhof Airport Berlin will be presented. In the empirical research, the author follows the three levels of regulation, conflict resolution and legal integration to shed legal light on the emergency accommodation at Berlin Tempelhof Airport. For this purpose, guideline-based interviews were conducted with various actors, the analysis of which is illustrated in the article. The author arrives at the thesis that the (permanent) exception to the law does not put the inhabitants of the emergency accommodation in a situation in which law is difficult to mobilise. Rather, it is the legal regulations themselves that make access to juridical system more difficult.

Der Artikel geht der Frage nach inwiefern sich die Idee des permanenten Ausnahmzustandsvon Giorgio Agamben in deutschen Flüchtlingslagern wiederfindet. Dabei werden erste Forschungsergebnisse aus der empirischen Forschung in der Notunterkunft im Flughafen Tempelhof Berlin vorgestellt. Die Verfasserin folgt dabei den drei Ebenen der Regulation, Konfliktlösung und rechtlichen Integration um die Notunterkunft im Flughafen Tempelhof rechtlich zu beleuchten. Hierzu wurden leitfadengestützte Interviews mit unterschiedlichen Akteuren durchgeführt, deren Analyse im Artikel präsentiert wird. Die Verfasserin gelangt dabei zu der These, dass nicht die (permanente) Ausnahme vom Recht die Bewohnerinnen und Bewohner der Notunterkunft in eine Situation bringt, in der Recht nur schwer mobilisierbar ist. Vielmehr sind es die rechtlichen Regelungen selbst, die den Zugang zum Recht erschweren.

Keywords: theory of law, permanent state of exception, refugee camps, law mobilisation, empirical research.

This article is part of the forthcoming issue Matthias Lemke / Ece Göztepe / Olivier Cahn (Ed.), New Normality? State of Emergency as Contemporary Government Technique.

Abstract 8/15: Anne-Marlen Engler (Humboldt University Berlin) – German Refugee Shelters

Carl Schmitt shaped the idea of a conjunction of sovereignty and the state of exception. Whereas Schmitt conceptualizes the state of exception as a state of exception, Giorgio Agamben broadens the concept and introduces a permanent state of exception as experienced in the camp – which he thinks of as the nomos of modernity. Within the camp, the sovereign rules over the inhabitants by way of reducing them to naked life. However, the state of exception is by no means a dictatorship; it is a lawless space [1].

My research project queries if German refugee shelters can be described as such lawless spaces in which the state of exception has become a quotidian reality. When arriving at the emergency shelters, the refugees have already undergone a first step of an integration by process [2]: they have been registered by the German authorities. Furthermore, in theory, they have access to human rights as well as German law. However, reports about detentions in mass shelters which last for months or abuses by the security personnel seem to confirm a situation which the American academic Ayten Gündoğdu has called “Rightlesness in an Age of Rights“. My research project wants to identify to what degree the refugees find themselves in “a bureaucratic situation similar to Kafkas castle” [3] and whether their access to law is hindered by arbitrary actions of the private shelter companies. My research work is based on the idea that the concept of the state of exception cannot convincingly explain the situation in the camps since it does not consider the coexistence of a legal regulation and a de facto lawlessness.

In the Colloquium “Ausnahmezustand. Eine Bestandsaufnahme”, I will present the first empirical results of my research project. In a pilot study, I have started to collect data with the help of structured interviews and field reports. The research field is an emergency shelter in a former airport in Berlin Neukölln which accommodates 1450 refugees at the moment. Orienting towards my research question, I interviewed four different status groups (social workers, refugees, lawyers and administration workers); special focus will be on the interviews with refugees as they are the ones affected by German housing politics.

[1] Agamben, Ausnahmezustand, S. 62.

[2] Luhmann, Legitmität durch Verfahren, S.94f.

[3] Gündoğdu, Rightlessness in an Age of Rights, S. 203.