Sovereignty & Corona
"Sovereign is he who decides on the exception." -Carl Schmitt
Under normal circumstances life is mostly dictated by laws and norms. It can seem as though the sovereignty, the one who decides, is absorbed in these. But laws and norms are only an externalization made by humans, a reflection of history to guide the future. They are therefore only as meaningful as humans view them in the present and always subject to change. Despite this, change is not common, but happens only when current laws and norms are insufficient, that is, in the exception. We therefore end up with: Sovereign is he who decides. Change is only made in the exception. Sovereign is he who decides on the exception. Reversely, an exception, thus, reveals the sovereign.
Who decides in a country? At the extremes we find authoritarianism where the state decides and anarchism where the individuals and society decide. And somewhere in between is modern democracy. One way democracy distinguishes itself from anarchism is the pursuit of global optimums instead of local optimums. An example of this is the tragedy of the commons, where individual human rationality grows into common irrationality, and a higher authority becomes rational. But more importantly, from an evolutionary perspective; whoever cannot defend themselves, eventually vanish. Because of this modern democracy cannot be just a liberal society, an entity that cannot justify killing of one’s own people without the willingness of the people themselves, but needs the ability to transform into authoritarianism and defend itself. As a result modern democracy ends up as a mix of both society and state. Although they are difficult to distinguish, one simplification is to say that the state does whatever is necessary, but the society won’t do. The interpretation of necessary then becomes the various forms and nuances of democracy existing today.
In a modern democracy it is not clear how to interpret the positioning of society and state in a hierarchy. Under normal circumstances it can seem as though the sovereignty resides in the society, and during the exceptions the sovereignty resides in the state. But this interpretation assumes discontinuity and discreteness, which entirely misses the most important aspect: the transition. Instead, could it be be possible that sovereignty has a stable base in either the society or the state and is only temporarily transferred to the other? If this is the case the sovereignty of a democracy would reside in the society and only be transferred to the state when needed. The obvious example is war, but to connect it back to the tragedy of commons it can be interpreted as temporarily transferring the sovereignty to the state, which externalizes this into a law before the sovereignty returns to the society. The contrast to this is authoritarianism where sovereignty is only temporarily transferred to society under the extreme events of revolutions before it eventually reverts back again. This interpretation takes the view that sovereignty, in its permanent base, is disguised as something easy to change, but is actually extremely hard.
The Coronavirus is an exception. Not by the uncertainty and potential threat itself, but because it is not clear from the current laws and norms how to respond to it. The responses so far can be divided in two. One form represented by China where sovereignty resides in the state and another by the US where sovereignty resides in the society. The former can be characterized by quarantines and lock-downs of cities and regions, whereas the latter can be characterized by individual measures, cancellations of events and companies pushing remote work.
Sovereignty in the state has the advantage of quick and bold decision making, but slow propagation of information in the society. It takes a long time from something is discovered until it reaches the people who make the decisions. When that happens, however, a bold decision can be made quickly. If we define the total decision-time from something is discovered to the decision is made, it will in this form mainly be determined by the propagation time. Highlighting the quick decisions in China should, therefore, not be seen as anything more than describing the last part of the total decision-process.
The contrast to this is sovereignty in the society where the propagation of information is quick, but converging on a decision is slow. This is because a decision is not dependent on reaching some particular people, but reaching as many people as possible and letting them interact so that they can form a decision. As a result, the composition of the total decision-time becomes completely reversed where the propagation time is marginal and forming the decision takes up almost all the time. In the same way as above, critiquing the slow decisions in the US is still just describing the last part of the decision-process.
Going forward, if the threat of the virus escalates one can expect quick and big responses in countries where the state is sovereign. But what will happen in countries where the society is sovereign is still not clear. On the one hand, the open flow of information could result in new and innovative responses, but if big quarantines and lock-downs become necessary a temporary transfer of sovereignty from society to the state has to happen.
All the best,
Erlend