Политическа извънредност без Карл Шмит: коронавирусът и либералната демокрация
Political Emergency without Carl Schmitt: The Coronavirus and Liberal Democracy

Summary/Abstract: The paper explores the relevance of Carl Schmitt’s analytical framework of the state of exception for the state of emergency in Bulgaria in 2020, which was introduced by parliament as a response to the COVID-19 crisis. The paper argues that Schmitt’s account is based on three main pillars: an antagonistic conception of politics and power, a belief in the necessity of unlimited power, and a conceptual connection between unlimited power and the unavoidably indeterminate character of law. The paper first raises a number of conceptual and theoretical arguments against these three main pillars. Secondly, it advances the claim that there is no sufficient empirical evidence supporting Schmitt’s claims – indeed, there is evidence, which refutes it. And finally, the paper argues that the Bulgarian case could be best explained not as a symptom of some deep theoretical and structural problems in liberal democracy, but rather as a result of routine contextual problems within the liberal democratic framework.

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