Radix - Volume 51, Issue 1, 2025

The state of exception is a juridico-political mechanism that temporarily suspends the law so governments can act more directly in an emergency situation. According to the philosopher Giorgio Agamben, contemporary politics should be understood as a permanent state of exception. This article explains what Agamben means by this permanent state of exception and how it relates to his analysis of biopolitics. According to Agamben, we have reached a point in history where the difference between law and politics on the one side, and mere biological, unpolitical life on the other has vanished. As such, even in modern democracies the positive, constitutional rights of citizens can potentially be suspended at any moment, thereby reducing them to ‘bare life’: life that is radically exposed to unmediated sovereign power. Agamben reveals how the mechanism of the state of exception is based on the fictional idea of a necessary relation between law and human life, and how this fiction legitimizes and renders possible the production of bare life. On top of explaining Agamben’s idea of a permanent state of exception, I relate this theory to the global autocratization that is taking place in order to reveal some of its underlying juridical processes.

After the return of chemical warfare during the Syrian civil war, we now hear reports about the use of chemical weapons by Russia in Ukraine. Overall, chemical weapons are rarely used and there is strong legislation against them, so it often leads to firm international reactions when they are used. In this contribution, I explain the role of chemical weapons at both operational and strategic levels, highlighting the importance of norm transgression. I demonstrate the operational role of chemical weapons in contemporary warfare, with reference to the Syrian civil war and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In addition, I argue that the strategic value of these weapons stems from the fact that their use creates a situation in which a normative appeal is made to the international community. The way in which the international community responds to this appeal reveals its normative integrity. The user can profit from this to expose potential weaknesses. Moreover, with the use of chemical weapons, the user communicates an implicit aversion to the international normative order. Combined, these two effects can seriously harm the ability of the norm against chemical warfare to constrain future behaviour.

This article examines the relationship between faith and happiness in times of crisis. A review of empirical literature indicates that religion reduces the negative effect of various types of crisis (death of relatives, natural disasters, or unemployment) on happiness. This is not only due to enforcement of social networks, but also to cognitive and motivational dimensions of religions. This article presents additional empirical analyses using data from the integrated World Values Survey and European Values Survey supporting that various aspects of religion reduce the negative effects of unemployment, the death of a spouse, or divorce on a person’s happiness. Tests on the effects of religion on feelings of restlessness, loneliness, depression and meaningless of life, show that particularly participation in religious meetings and membership of protestant churches reduce these negative feelings that often go together with crisis. These results apply to worldwide data and data of the Netherlands only. The findings are further supported and illustrated by ten interviews. Almost all interviewees agreed that their faith provided support in difficult circumstances, particularly in case of illness or early death of relatives.

Recent studies have indicated an increase in psychological disorders among young people in Western society. This article explores the potential contribution of Christian theology to the public debate by examining the dispute between Luther and Erasmus on free will. The crux of the disagreement lies in the question of anthropology: whether humans are free and the architects of their own lives, irrespective of divine intervention, or if biblical teachings offer a divergent perspective. Luther’s perspective, as outlined in this article, posits that human freedom is not as extensive as commonly believed, and that human life is, in fact, subject to the will of God, the Father of Jesus Christ. The recognition of this reality is proposed as a means of navigating the pervasive spiritual crisis that characterizes contemporary society.

Confidence is a strong form of hope, an essential element of the cardinal virtue of courage. Thomas compares courage and trust to the gift of the Spirit named courage and to the beatitude about those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. He interprets Jesus’ prescription not to be afraid as an exhortation to courage. Thomas’ topicality lies in the distinction between feeling and virtue, in the conviction that trust can be learned and in the indispensability of this trust also in the public sphere.