X/Xs: Toward a General Theory of the Exception

Despite renewed interest in the Schmittian problematic of the exception as the constitutive principle of the political, the full significance of Schmitt's political philosophy remains underestimated. Starting from Schmitt's account of the relation between the constituted order and its constitutive principle, the decision on exception, this article outlines a broader discursive space that is here called the political ontology of exceptionalism and articulates three theses that describe the ways in which all forms of order are constituted, sustained, and undermined by various functions of the exception.