The Politics of Emergency

Military and humanitarian interventions have become commonplace in recent years, provoking some to suggest that the right to intervene in the face of an emergency has become a new global norm. Emergencies and interventions pose unique challenges for political and legal theories of sovereignty, legitimacy, and democracy. Political anthropologists and other social scientists have focused on critiques of sovereign power and military and humanitarian interventions, but more attention to the cultural aspects of how emergencies operate and to the positive and negative effects they might have on political and social life is needed.