State-Conducted Political Violence: A Persistent Juridico-Political Phenomenon (Even in Times of Transformation)

According to liberal constitutionalizm, the legitimacy of the actions of the sovereign state finds its grounds in democratically formed political power that is subjected to national law inside. The reflection of this thought in IR is the thesis of liberal international order. As such, the state is also deemed to be bound by international law in its relations with other sovereign states, comprising an international order valuing liberal principles of state rule and actions. The defenders of liberal constitutionalizm and liberal constitutional order consider democracy and violence incompatible. However, political violence conducted by states is integral to many democracies. Let alone democracy excluding violence and sovereign state practices, the state practices’ legitimacy has been ultimately based on violence. In navigating the complex interplay between state practices and (national and international) norms, this paper looks at the power-law nexus in the national and international orders. It centers this nexus by looking into the emergency and war powers in the legal order, political power and democratic legitimacy, and notions of sovereignty to discuss the spatially selective political violence conducted by states. It argues that domestic and international security politics co-constitute each other. The mutual relationship between democratic notions and violence accompanies this co-constitution. Through the justification on the grounds of political ‘necessities’, referring to democracy and liberal order, violence can become something processed and laid the basis for through the state institutions formed as a part of democratic requirements. In effect, violence becomes justified as the logical extension of emergency or war prerequisites to save the nation/state. When the subject that is framed as a threat is the same for the state’s internal and external actions, national and international aspects of sovereignty merge into the notion of violence, legitimized on the same grounds at both national and international levels.

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