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INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL THEORY
SERIES EDITOR: GARY BROWNING
COVID-19 and
International
Political Theory
Assessing the Potential for
Normative Shift
Ruairidh Brown
International Political Theory
Series Editor
Gary Browning, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
The Palgrave International Political Theory Series provides students and
scholars with cutting-edge scholarship that explores the ways in which
we theorise the international. Political theory has by tradition implic-
itly accepted the bounds of the state, and this series of intellectually
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pline forward, reflecting both the burgeoning of IR as a discipline and the
concurrent internationalisation of traditional political theory issues and
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tics is to be interpreted, the titles in the series thus bridge the IR-political
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forms of conceiving international relations such as realism, liberalism and
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Ruairidh Brown
COVID-19
and International
Political Theory
Assessing the Potential for Normative Shift
Ruairidh Brown
Forward College
Paris, France
ISSN 2662-6039 ISSN 2662-6047 (electronic)

International Political Theory
ISBN 978-3-030-91951-1 ISBN 978-3-030-91952-8 (eBook)
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For Granny
Acknowledgements
COVID-19 will doubtless be remembered as a historic international

event. It is also however a deeply personal event, having affected nearly
everyone in the globe in ways that are both universal and unique.
I still vividly recall my first discussions about COVID-19 in January
2020. I was at the time contracted to teach at the University of Notting-
ham’s mainland China campus and had only just recently returned to
Edinburgh for the Chinese New Year break. My family were naturally
growing increasingly concerned about the news of this virus and what it
meant for the prospects of my return to China.
‘Nah, it will be fine’, I still remember thinking.
It would of course not be fine. I would indeed never return to China.
Soon Scotland was in lockdown. Princess Street, St Andrews Square,
The Royal Mile, were all abandoned. I proposed this book to Palgrave
during that first lockdown.
I receive my publishing contract and begin properly writing the
following winter. Another lockdown is in place. I take a break from
writing to catch up with a friend. Indoor socialising is forbidden. We
stand with a takeout Costa beneath the walls of Edinburgh castle, our
faces stung and lashed by the winter blizzard.
I end my position ‘in China’ in June, during a ‘staycation’ on the Isle
of Arran. The smell of whisky hangs in the air; distilleries have shifted
production to hand sanitizer as part of local action to contain the spread
of the virus.
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The manuscript is finished in August. Things appear to be getting

better. After submission, it is even possible to watch a show at the Fringe
Festival.
The manuscript review reaches me in Lisbon. I have been teaching in
Portugal since September. The virus appears to be retreating, at least in
Europe. Masks, tests, and vaccine records aside, life seems to be ‘more
normal’. Teaching is in person, not online. I meet and discuss with
colleagues on the banks of the Tagus, a welcome change from the zoom.
I even meet former students from China who are visiting the city; the
European exchange programme has resumed. In October we enjoy a city
break to Berlin. German border police dismissed my PCR test; ‘no longer
required’.
I finish this book in Edinburgh. It’s a week before Christmas. A new
‘tsunami’ of COVID-19 cases is predicted, thanks to the new Omicron
variant. The UK records the highest daily case total since the pandemic
began. Restrictions are rapidly returning.
From conception to completion this book was written against the
shadow of the pandemic, a time haunted by the hoped for, but never
arriving, ‘return to normal’. A condition we continually aspire for, but
which yet remains elusive. Writing both about and from within the
pandemic, this seems an appropriate time to stop and be thankful.
My first thanks go to my wife, Kimberly Bell, who has been constant
source of support and encouragement since we first met by the loch at
Stirling University fourteen years ago. I am however especially grateful
to have had her support during these difficult times of the pandemic. I
am everyday thankful that fate determined we should go through this
pandemic together and not be separated at different sides of the globe.
I also thank my mum and dad, Anne, and Ivor Brown, for their
constant support, encouragement, and belief, as well as of course Mist and
Fizz. I would also thank my grandmother Beryl Brown for her continual
support, and the levity of her humour during the pandemic. I further
thank my Northern Irish family, especially my mother-in-law Margaret
Bell.
I would also take this opportunity to thank friends and colleagues and
give acknowledgement to those who read and gave me direct feedback
and advice on this project, namely:Christian Müller; King-Ho Leung;
Nicholas Ross Smith; and Tracey Fallon. Your feedbacks, thoughts, and
also encouragement, during such a busy and challenging time is hugely
appreciated.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix
The reflections in this book on Chinese Socialism would not have been
possible if it was not for the years I taught in mainland China and, perhaps
more crucially, if it was not for having such incredible students. The
discussions, ideas, and issues, you brought to the classroom, to my office,
and (especially during the pandemic) to my email inbox, truly opened my
eyes to so much. It is with regret, but also with pride that I have taught
too many brilliant students to list them all individually here. Nonetheless,
I do wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to you all for being excellent
students who, more often than not, taught me as much as I taught you.
This book is in the tradition of International Political Theory, and
therefore it would not be right to omit tribute to the home of ‘IPT’
the University of St. Andrews, where I studied for my MLitt and PhD
between 2012 and 2017. I truly owe a gratitude to all the brilliant
teachers of International Political Theory at this great institution as well
as my exceptional classmates (both the full and honorary member(s)
of the IPT class of 2013 especially). I must give specific thanks to my
former supervisor Professor Gabriella Slomp who introduced me to Carl
Schmitt when I was a MLitt student. Beyond her academic guidance
when I was a student, I am also very grateful for Gabriella’s continued
support and advice in the early years of my scholarly vocation. I would
also like to thank Tony Lang—who both taught me throughout my time
at St Andrews and served as my internal PhD examiner—for always high-
lighting the international dimensions of political philosophy, an emphasis
that has led me to many rewarding avenues of thought.
I must also thank Forward College, whom I began working for as I
complete this book. It has meant an incredible amount to me to be given
this new and exciting opportunity to work in Lisbon, and to work with
such a great group of fellows, especially at such challenging times; it has
brought some much-needed sunshine both literally and metaphorically.
I would also like to thank Palgrave for their support during the project.
This is my second time publishing with Palgrave, and both times have
been an absolute pleasure. I am once more incredibly grateful for the
encouragement and support they seamlessly provide. I would especially
like to thank Ambra Finotello at Palgrave for her continued support
during this project.
I would also of course like to thank the two anonymous reviewers
who gave invaluable insight on this project. Their feedbacks and reviews
have contributed enormously to this work, shining light down wynds of
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
thought I would not have otherwise explored. For this, I am incredibly

grateful.
My final thanks go to my grandmother Betty McMichan, whom this
book is dedicated to, and who sadly passed away in 2021. I dedicated
my previous book to her husband, my grandfather Michael McMichan.
Michael pushed me to develop my thoughts and ideas through being
always inquisitively critical, forcing me to continually rethink my posi-
tions and how to explain and defend them. By sharp contrast, Betty was
unflinching in her support and encouragement for the positions I took
and the pathways I elected; a loving a touchstone of reassurance in a world
that is so often opaque, a reservoir of support unaffected by drought.
Contents
1 Introduction: COVID-19—The Event 1

1.1 The Study of Norms 4
1.2 The International 5
1.3 Intellectual History 7
1.4 Intellectual History and Natural Disasters 11
1.5 Outline of the Book 13
References 15
2 Emergency Powers and Authoritarian Shift 21
2.1 Commissary and Sovereign Dictatorships 22
2.2 Emergency Powers in Historical Context 26
2.3 China—A Sovereign Dictatorship 30
2.4 Hungary—A Commissary Dictatorship 32
References 37
3 Freedom of Speech and Information 41
3.1 Theoretical Paradigms 43
3.2 China and the Quarantine of Public Discussion 47
3.3 Liberal Society and the Danger of the ‘Black Hole’ 51
References 60
4 COVID-19 in China: Chinese Socialism
and the Challenge to Liberal Norms 63
4.1 Collective Solidarity: Chinese Socialism’s Key Strength 64
xi
xii CONTENTS
4.2 Unity in Transition: The Place of Solidarity in Chinese

Socialism 67
4.3 The Limitations of a Sinified Telos: Chinese Socialism’s
International Prospects 72
References 79
5 Liberalism and Political Obligation: Debating
the Remits of State Intervention 81
5.1 Schmitt and Political Obligation 83
5.2 Green and Political Obligation 87
5.3 Schmitt and Green: A Hermeneutic (Re)interpretation 93
References 101
6 Hermeneutic Liberalism at the International Level 103
6.1 Interpretation and the International 104
6.2 Hermeneutic Human Rights 106
6.3 Hermeneutic Human Rights and Vaccine Passports 111
References 119
7 Can We Get Beyond Enmity? On a Post-pandemic
Order 121
7.1 Mapping the Contours of International Enmity
in the COVID-19 Pandemic 122
7.2 The Potency of Enmity 125
7.3 Defending Ourselves from Ourselves: Enmity, Security,
and the Anthropocene 128
7.4 COVID-19 and Normative Shift—in Search of a New
Politics 130
References 138
Index 141
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: COVID-19—The Event
Abstract In this introduction, Brown outlines the main questions of the

book: ‘will the pandemic result in a shift towards more authoritarian
political norms?’; ‘will it serve as a catalyst for a resurgence in Marxist-
Leninism via Chinese Socialism?’; and ‘how can liberalism adjust to a
post-pandemic world?’ He will also situates the book’s approach within
the tradition of International Political Theory (IPT). This is be done
by identifying and unpacking three core elements of an ‘IPT approach’:
focus on norms; the relations between the international and domestic;
and engagement with Intellectual History.
Keywords COVID-19 · International Political Theory · International

Relations Theory · Carl Schmitt
Alain Badiou famously characterised an ‘event’ as an unforeseeable occur-

rence that causes a rupture in the normal political and social order; an
occurrence so impactful and traumatic that it shatters the regularity of
everyday life and calls into question the norms that govern the current
age of human existence (Badiou, 2010).
There is no doubt that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has proved
‘traumatic’. It is indeed highly unlikely that you, reading this book, have
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
R. Brown, COVID-19 and International Political Theory,
International Political Theory,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91952-8_1
2 R. BROWN
not been directly affected by the pandemic in some way; whether it be

from being infected with COVID-19; having lost someone you loved
or cared about; or having experienced the reality of one of the many
‘lockdowns’ which have been enforced across the globe.
This book does not however intend to document the ‘trauma’. Rather,
it is concerned with what Badiou articulated as the potential for an ‘event’
to impact upon and change our political norms. The book is focused on
analysing and predicting the potential ‘shift’ in our political norms that
COVID-19 could cause.1
Since the onset of the pandemic there has been concern that emer-
gency restrictions could cause a shift in our political norms towards a
more authoritarian society: that emergency legislation could be used to
achieve goals external to pandemic prevention or, worse still, governments
could become reluctant to relinquish such powers and instead incorpo-
rate them into the ‘normal’ working of government. This is precisely
what Giorgio Agamben believes has occurred with terrorism preven-
tion legislation, maintaining that emergency powers, assumed by many
western States to combat the threat of terrorism after 9/11, have become
increasingly normalised and incorporated into the standard practice of
government, slowly moving these predominantly liberal societies in an
increasingly authoritarian direction (Agamben, 2008: 2).
Agamben has raised similar concerns about COVID-19. In a notably
controversial article, the Italian philosopher declared that:
terrorism exhausted as a cause for exceptional measures… the invention

of an epidemic offered the ideal pretext for scaling them up beyond any
limitation. (Agamben, 2020)
Agamben’s remarks received considerable criticism, perhaps unsurprising

considering his terming of the pandemic as an ‘invention’ (Benvenuto,
2020; Christaens, 2020; Nancy, 2020; Žižek, 2020). Nonetheless, in
defence of Agamben, some scholars have argued he does make valid
points concerning the need to take a critical perspective on the extension
of State power during a crisis (den Berge, 2020; McLaverty-Robinson,
2020). Indeed, even Agamben’s most ferocious critics, critics who have
gone so far as to suggest the Italian should be ‘de-platformed’, have
conceded there is a valid concern ‘that the draconian emergency powers of
today could become tomorrow’s apparatuses of oppression’ (Christaens,
2020).
1 INTRODUCTION: COVID-19—THE EVENT 3
Concerns regarding an increasing shift towards authoritarianism have

been intensified by the handling of the crisis in China, where the virus
was first detected in late 2019. In response to the unfolding pandemic,
the Chinese government unleashed one of the most extensive and tech-
nologically advanced systems of control and surveillance ever witnessed,
using everything in its arsenal from traditional roadblocks to high-tech
drones coupled with strict censorship of information and public expres-
sion. Nonetheless, whilst some observers have expressed concern over
the inherent authoritarianism in China’s response (Kavanaugh, 2020),
many have applauded these efforts. Indeed, both international institutions
(WHO-China, 2020) and academics (Kolbl & Mayer, 2020) insisted the
Chinese response ought to be emulated.
Such praise has led to the hypotheses that COVID-19 could prove an
‘epochal moment’ that gives China a window of opportunity to restruc-
ture world order in its own image (Smith & Fallon, 2020). Significantly,
the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has attributed China’s success to
its societal norms as directed by Marxist-Leninism. President Xi Jinping’s
own ‘brand’ of Marxist-Leninism—known as ‘Xi Jinping Thought’—has
been accredited with providing a shining light for the nation in the battle
against the virus. CCP controlled media meanwhile declared the combina-
tion of China’s socialist ethos and the Marxist-Leninist vision of Xi have
revealed China’s normative superiority over the liberal west, a superior
insight that can form the central inspiration for international norms and
values in a post-COVID world (Smith & Brown, 2021).2
Considering such challenges and debates, this book will focus on three
key questions. First, can emergency powers be used to preserve society
from the virus without necessitating a transition to more authoritarian
political norms? Secondly, will COVID-19 prove a catalyst for Chinese
Socialism to challenge, and potentially usurp, liberalism as the dominant
international political norm3 ? Finally, what changes to liberalism ought
to be made as a result of the pandemic? What direction should liberalism
take in the post-pandemic world?
This book is entitled International Political Theory and COVID-19.
Thus, before proceeding, I will first situate the book within the tradition
of International Political Theory (IPT). The quick definition of IPT is
that it sits on the intersection between International Relations (IR) and
Political Theory (PT) (Brown & Eckersley, 2018: 3; Brown et al., 2002:
1). Nonetheless, to understand the IPT tradition more substantially, we
4 R. BROWN
may identify three key aspects of its approach: (1) a focus on norms; (2)
a concern for the ‘international’; (3) a close relationship with the History
of Political Thought.
1.1 The Study of Norms

What is explicitly meant by ‘norms’ is the principles and assumptions
that inform and underpin thought patterns and expected behaviour
within situations or communities (Lang, 2015). Norms differ from ‘laws’
in the sense that a ‘law’ compels us to undertake, or restrains us from
undertaking, certain actions. Norms by contrast do not physically compel
but rather inform our thinking on what ought to be done. There is no
law, for instance, that says I must open the door for a female colleague.
Yet, despite the lack of legal compulsion, I may nonetheless carry out this
action because I belive I ought to do it. Why I feel so obliged is due to the
underlying assumptions and principles which frame the relations between
people in my community; it is due to the social norms that regulate my
situation.
This focus on norms distinguishes IPT from IR most significantly, IR
being more focused on the application of scientific method as a means
of understanding international affairs than normative and ethical thinking
(Brown, 2010: 5; 2018: 52–53). This was epitomised in Kenneth Waltz’s
definition of IR Theory as an attempt to hypothesise the relations between
variables. This definition he explicitly aligns to the understanding of ‘the-
ory’ in natural sciences and Economics whilst differentiating it from
Philosophy and PT (Waltz, 1979: 6). Pioneers of IPT, such as Chris
Brown (2010), have subsequently seen the study of norms as an impor-
tant endeavour to recover the deeper normative and ethical reasoning that
has been marginalised by this ‘scientification’ of IR.
There are two main approaches that IPT takes to the study of norms.
Firstly, it can be ‘interpretative’: it can seek to identify norms; interpret
their logic and implications; and identify their origins. In this way IPT can
gain deeper understanding of the nature and workings of a community as
well as gain insight into the identity and motivations of its constitutive
members: that a man feels duty bound to open doors for females reveals
a lot about ‘who’ that man is and the community he comes from.
The second way IPT approaches norms is by being ‘prescriptive’. One
might conclude that this practice of ‘holding doors for women’ is a virtue
that contributes towards a caring society. Subsequently, one might add to
one’s interpretation a prescriptive argument that the practice ought to be

maintained or even emulated. Alternatively, one might discover that this
practice is grounded on a prejudice about women being physically weaker
than men. Subsequently, one may recommend that the practice should no
longer be followed. In each case, one moves beyond simply interpretating
what norms are and makes prescriptive suggestions about what they ought
to be.
IPT is of course not so concerned with the functioning of norms in the
localised setting of a workplace but rather the influence of norms at the
international level. This is more complex as norms are much less clearly
defined at the international level, owing to the great diversity of actors
coming from multiple cultural backgrounds. The ontological foundation
of the international, as Justin Rosenberg (2016) frames it, is ‘societal
multiplicity’.
1.2 The International

IPT’s relationship with the international can again be considered from
the tradition’s situation between IR and PT. PT traditionally overlooks
the international dimension of politics, and it is indeed to counterbal-
ance this neglect that IPT often focuses on the international so specifically
(Lang, 2015). Meanwhile, IR frequently overlooks the domestic. Waltz,
for instance, famously separating the international from domestic poli-
tics, viewing it as a separate and distinct sphere of its own (Rosenberg,
2016: 133). IPT thus engages with PT to recapture the significance
of domestic ethical norms which are often neglected by IR’s predom-
inantly systems-based approach which closes off the international. IPT
subsequently bridges the international with the domestic. Equally, thus,
IPT is not concerned with the ‘international’ purely but the relationship
between ‘domestic’ and ‘international’ (Rengger, 1999).
An interesting perspective on the link between domestic and interna-
tional has recently been advocated by King-Ho Leung who, in a recent
article, suggests that analogy or ‘mimesis’ is a helpful way to interpret
this relationship. Leung proposes this idea of a mimetic link through a
(re)reading of Plato which interprets human existence as ontologically
grounded in the ‘cosmic’. Focusing on a ‘cosmic lens’ derived from
Timaeus, Leung argues that the cosmic provides an ontological premise
which a well-ordered polity and human soul would subsequently imitate
(mimesis ). Thus, Leung argues, for Plato:
6 R. BROWN
the ‘well-ordered’ macro-microcosmic inter-relation between the human,

the political state and the supra-political cosmic order is to be realised
through mimesis: the human soul, the polis and the cosmos are to imitate
each other – to become ‘images’ of one another. (Leung, 2021: 6)
Whilst Leung notes that Plato’s ‘three orders’ and Waltz’s ‘three stages
of analysis’ (individual, State, and State-system) do not exactly map on to
each other (Plato’s ‘cosmic’ and Waltz’s ‘state-system’ being particularly
difficult to reconcile) they give interesting insight into how we under-
stand the relationship between the different spheres of human existence.
Notably, unlike Waltz, the Platonic conception does not treat each sphere
in isolation but rather views them as knitted together in a harmonious
mimetic patter, with the image of the ‘cosmos’ becoming the ideal theo-
retical framework from which understanding—‘or even ordering ’—the
polity and the psyche can be achieved (Leung, 2021; Rengger, 1999).
Leung thus argues for an understanding of the human, the State, and the
world as integrally linked through mimesis in which the ‘international’
(cosmic) becomes a unifying frame of reference (Leung, 2021).
Leung’s ordering of politics—indeed, human existence—according
to cosmic metaphysics will of course be controversial, especially when
presented to an IR discipline dominated by scientific methodologies, as
Leung himself concedes (Leung, 2021: 9). If one was of a Classical
Marxist persuasion, one could also accuse Leung of having his ordering
‘the wrong way round’: plains of existence may indeed exist in symmetry,
but this does not function top-down according to some mystical cosmic
ordering but rather bottom-up as dictated by the iron laws of economic
necessity.
Nonetheless, analysis of Leung’s metaphysical premises is beyond the
scope of this introduction. What is rather of key interest is the idea of
the international, not separate from, but intrinsically linked with other
levels of human existence, indeed, the notion that these resemble other
in mimesis. This understanding of mimetic interplay is particularly impor-
tant if we are to understand how certain norms came to dominate the
international. In his introduction to IPT, Anthony Lang JR. (2015)
characterises the international as broadly liberal. However, in order to
understand how it became broadly liberal, we need to understand the link
between the domestic and international. Martti Koskenniemi has alluded
to this in his landmark study of international law The Gentle Civiliser of
Nations (2009). International law, a key pillar of international liberalism,
was established and took on a broadly liberal form in the Nineteenth

century due to the fact that the world system in the period was dominated
by States who shared normative roots in the European Enlightenment.
International law was thus established on broadly liberal terms as the
States who dominated the international system constructed it out of the
domestic norms they shared in common. A sort of symmetry—a mimesis
if you will—thus existed between European public law and international
law.
This understanding of normative interplay is also central, not just for
understanding how liberal international norms were established, but how
they may be challenged. Chinese Socialism has been largely lauded for its
ability to ‘defeat’ the virus within China. If Chinese Socialism is however
to replace liberalism as a source of international norms it will need to
translate its values from a domestic to an international level. A mimetic
link between Chinese Socialism domestically and China’s vision for inter-
national order is thus of central importance if it is to successfully challenge
liberalism’s hegemony.
1.3 Intellectual History

One of the insights lost from IR, resulting from its colonisation by scien-
tific method, is that of Intellectual History: the ‘wisdom of literature’ and
‘anecdotal evidence of history’ being substituted for the application of
systematic scientific concepts and reasoning (Brown, 2010: 5; 2018: 52–
53). The lack of engagement with history is nonetheless a problem Brown
also identifies with PT, lamenting that PT has become increasingly ahis-
torical due to the influence of analytical philosophy (Brown, 2018: 10).
In addition to bridging IR and PT, in its engagement with Intellectual
History, IPT seeks to overcome the shortcomings of both.
Unlike historical studies, IPT does not approach Intellectual History to
study past thinkers in-and-for-themselves. Rather, it seeks to engage with
the history of ideas as to see what guidance thinkers of the past can give
on contemporary problems: IPT seeks to ‘construct a dialogue between
the past and the present’ as to shed greater insight on the contemporary
world (Lang, 2015: 6–7). This book will continue this IPT tradition by
engaging with the thought of German legal theorist Carl Schmitt.
The reason for seeking dialogue primarily with Schmitt is due to his
undeniable influence on theories of emergency politics. Schmitt’s work is
frequently regarded as a, if not the, seminal study on emergency powers.
8 R. BROWN
As Agamben observes, works that trace the transformation of parliamen-

tary democracies into authoritarian States, including his own, are heavily
indebted to Schmitt’s thought (Agamben, 2008: 6). In addition, Schmitt
was also (in)famously a critique of liberal society, especially when faced
with an existential crisis. Schmitt’s insights can thus form a crucially valu-
able framework when considering the limitations of liberal norms when
faced with the pandemic.
Nonetheless, as insightful as Schmitt may be, he is also one of the most
controversial Political Theorists. This is largely due to his membership of
the Nazi Party from 1933 until the fall of the Third Reich. In light of
this, there are three points of contention which I may first address before
engaging with Schmitt in the following chapters.
The first issue is one of interpretation. When engaging with an intel-
lectual figure, F.S. McNeilly warns against misguided efforts to try and
reconstruct a coherent theory from ideas and concepts scattered across
a diverse oeuvre: one must resist the temptation to make ‘splendid
omelettes’ from a philosopher’s ‘broken eggs’ (McNeilly, 1968). This
warning Gabriella Slomp (2009) has stressed as acutely relevant in the
case of Schmitt who notably changed his views significantly across his life.
Indeed, it has been suggested his ‘pre’ and ‘post’ Third Reich writings
are so different they can be separated into two completely independent
groupings (Kervegan, 1999). This is further complicated by the associa-
tion between Schmitt and the Nazi Party, with debate centring around
whether writings published under the Third Reich were his authentic
viewpoint or simply an attempt to show intellectual alignment with the
Party (Slomp, 2009: 37).
In response to this problem, it is important to stress the IPT approach
of having a dialogue with Schmitt rather than studying Schmitt’s thought
in-and-for-itself. Thus, questions of the coherence of his work, or the
authenticity of particular works, are not our concern here. So long as
I do not misinterpret Schmitt, such questions of textual interpretation
can be left to the Schmitt scholars. Instead, in the form of a dialogue,
we are treating Schmitt much more like a living human being who we
can engage in conversations with in order to help give insights into the
current predicament. Thus also, like any human being, he is entitled to
change his viewpoint over the course of our conversations. We might
indeed envision Schmitt as a distant intellectual relative who (as restric-
tions ease) we meet up with for conversation and to get his reflections on
the pandemic. He may change his mind across these meetings, and we
may likely disagree with him on many points, but what is important is he
provides insight and helps us form our own ideas about the situation we
are in.
The second issue is ethical and pertains precisely to Schmitt’s member-
ship of the Nazi Party. Schmitt was not just an active Nazi party member
but also penned justificatory essays for Nazi atrocities, most notably the
Night of the Long Knives (Schmitt, 1940). Subsequently many scholars
have argued that Schmitt’s thought is forever ‘haunted’ by the Holo-
caust (Huysmans, 1999: 323) and cannot be studied without ‘intellectual
revulsion and moral distress’ (Holmes, 1983).
In response to this controversy, I would again stress the importance of
a ‘dialogical’ approach: this is not a study of Schmitt nor a ‘Schmittian
approach’ to the current pandemic but a dialogue with Schmitt. Subse-
quently, as an interlocutor who we are in conversation with, as opposed to
a theorist whose ideas we are trying to ‘apply’, we can disagree with him.
Indeed, the areas where we disagree with Schmitt can be potentially more
enlightening than areas where consensus is found. This is particularly
acute when discussing the issues of political emergencies as Schmitt’s pre-
1933 views have been highlighted as the type of thought that legitimised
Adolph Hitler’s seizure of power (Agamben, 2008; Wolin, 1990). Iden-
tifying areas where we disagree with Schmitt thus provides extra insight
into our understanding of the crises, especially in relation to the danger
of increased authoritarianism.
The third point of concern is that Schmitt is undoubtedly a ‘European’
thinker, indeed, self-identifying as the ‘last knowing representative of
ius publicum Europaeum’ (Schmitt, 2017: 60). COVID-19 is however a
global pandemic. It could thus be argued that engaging primarily with an
explicitly European thinker could force a ‘western’ interpretation on the
crisis which marginalises non-western voices. This is particularly important
as this book will have extensive focus on China and Chinese Socialism.
Academic disciplines (especially IR) have received extensive criticism for
taking a purely western-based approach to their interpretation of Chinese
politics with the consequence of projecting western modes of thought
onto this Asian polity (Kavalski, 2017; Qin, 2010). Adopting Schmitt
as the main interlocutor of this study could subsequently be viewed as
continuing a misleading projection of the west and distortion of China.
In response, although Schmitt may be a self-identifying European,
this does not mean his thought necessarily remains bound by Europe.
It is noticeable that there has been a significant upsurge in interest in
10 R. BROWN
Schmitt within China over the past decades, indeed, this upsurge being
so extensive as to be dubbed China’s ‘Schmitt fever’ (Qi, 2012; Shaw,
2017; Xie & Patapan, 2020; Xu, 2018). Most of this interest has been to
articulate a justification of the Part-State’s legitimacy using categories of
Schmitt’s thought. Understanding Schmitt thus becomes very important
to interpreting contemporary notions of Chinese Socialism and how CCP
legitimacy is understood and articulated. A dialogue with Schmitt thus
further enhances our understanding of China, and to ignore him on the
basis of being ‘European’ would deprive us of a key analytical perspective.
It is thus apparent that, beyond being a seminal thinker on emergency
politics, Schmitt is also a crucially important interlocutor in relation to the
three central questions of this book: his association with the Third Reich
helps serve as a warning about the dangers of authoritarianism; his recep-
tion and reinterpretation in China gives crucial insight into contemporary
Chinese Socialism; and his criticism of liberalism provides perspective on
our evaluation of liberal norms.
Nonetheless, whilst Schmitt might provide the ideal candidate for
insightful critique, given his abject rejection of liberal thought, he is a far
less appealing candidate to help us imagine how liberalism might adapt
to a post-pandemic world. Subsequently, as this book moves towards
theorising about post-pandemic liberalism, I will need to engage with
another thinker to inspire a way forward. The figure I will turn to is
the Nineteenth century British Idealist T.H. Green. Green’s thought
was not concerned with existential emergencies, as is explicitly the case
with Schmitt. However, he was concerned with deeper endemic prob-
lems, in particular the extent of poverty in Victorian Britain, that could,
if left unaddressed, be as equally threatening to the life of a polity
as a sudden political crisis (Green, 1986). Intriguingly, like Schmitt,
Green also believed that the liberal thought of the day was inhibiting
the State from intervening and dealing effectively with the problem.
However, unlike Schmitt, Green did not reject liberalism but hypothe-
sised its reform. Considering how Green imagined liberalism evolving to
adapt to the endemic problems of Nineteenth century Britain can thus
provide invaluable insight for imagining how liberalism can adapt to the
post-pandemic reality of the Twenty-First.
As with when engaging Schmitt, there are also problematic issues
with interpreting Green. Indeed, given the particularly ambiguous and
abstract nature of his ‘broken eggs’, it is even more difficult to present
a coherent Green ‘omelette’. Equally, whilst not raising such immediate
ethical concerns as does a card-carrying Nazi, as we will see, aspects of
Green’s thought potentially lead to some uncomfortable logical conclu-

sions. Nonetheless, the aim of this book is not to give a ‘Greenian’
interpretation of liberalism any more than it is to give a Schmittian inter-
pretation of the pandemic. Rather, Green and Schmitt are brought into
this work as to form a dialogue with the past to help give insight into how
we may procced in and beyond the pandemic: their purpose is to inspire
a route forward, not dictate its path.
Quentin Skinner once urged scholars not to rely on the answers of
historical thinkers for solutions to contemporary problems. We must
instead ‘do our thinking for ourselves’ (Skinner, 1969: 52). Thinking ‘for
ourselves’ is what IPT advocates. However, it also acknowledges that we
do not do this in a vacuum. When thinking about our current predica-
ment, we do not do so in isolation but in dialogue with loved ones,
friends, and colleagues who are equally, though often in different ways,
deeply affected. Thus also, when philosophising about a way forward, we
need not think alone but can do so in consultation with philosophers of
the past. This is not to negate independence of thought, but to rather
acknowledge that thought occurs not in a vacuum but in a dialogue,
a dialogue with the living and the dead. This dialogical engagement is
central to how ‘we do’ IPT.
1.4 Intellectual History and Natural Disasters

Whilst Schmitt and Green may, between them, address a wide range of
both political and social problems, these problems are nonetheless mostly
‘human’ in nature, such as poverty or political unrest. COVID-19, by
contrast, is a more ‘natural’ problem in the sense we are talking about
the spread of a virus. Overt focus on ‘human’ crisis is also evident in the
literature on emergencies and politics, the focus being almost entirely on
civil wars and insurrections rather than ‘natural’ emergencies such as viral
pandemics or climate change (Agamben, 2008; Sorell, 2013). Nonethe-
less, discussion of naturally occurring emergencies is more common in
Intellectual History more broadly. Whilst it would be beyond the remit
of this introduction to give a complete account of such discourses, it is
nonetheless important to observe that vital insights can be gained from
engaging with these sources. In this section two key insights will be
outlined: societal collapse and personification.
The notion of societal collapse has been impressed upon the public
consciousness since the outbreak of COVID-19, popular websites
12 R. BROWN
frequently ‘ranking’ it against the ‘most devastating’ epidemics such as the

‘Great Dying’.4 In the western canon, societal collapse was a key theme
of Thucydides’ account of the plague in Athens in 430 BC. Although
vividly describing the effects of the plague on mortality—‘dying men lay
tumbling one upon another in the streets’ (Thucydides, 2011: II 53)—
Thucydides more often focused on the effects of the plague on Athenian
social norms. Under the imminent threat of death people no longer feared
civil or divine retribution. Nor did they engage in any industry for they
doubted they would see it completed. Athenian social society effectively
collapsed (Thucydides, 2011: II 53). Thucydides account of the horror
of the plague eroding away social norms has a significant impact on how
epidemics were perceived in subsequent writings, indeed, becoming a
‘template’ in the classical period (Longrigg, 1992). Procopius of Caesarea,
for example, highlights the Byzantine plague of 542 AD in equally apoc-
alyptic terms—‘the whole human race came near to being annihilated’
(Procopius, 2005: II XXII)—and emphasis the collapse in societal norms
which resulted from this (Procopius, 2005: II XXIII).
Given the emphasise on societal collapse, it is unsurprising that concern
developed towards how to securitize against such outbreaks. During the
current pandemic scholars have noted how Thomas Hobbes’ description
of the ‘state of nature’ draws surprising parallels to epidemics, such as
with the suspension of arts and industries. This has led to consideration
of whether Hobbes’ ‘mortal god’ was imagined, not just in relation to
political threats such as civil wars, but also biological threats such as the
bubonic plague. Indeed, Leviathan’s cover image depicts empty streets
being patrolled by none other than plague doctors (Botting, 2021; Poole,
2020).
The philosopher who is most famous for analysing the securitisa-
tion of plague is undoubtedly Michel Foucault. Foucault fundamentally
links plague management—both in terms of mortality and collapsing
social norms—to the development of ‘disciplinary power’. By ‘disci-
plinary power’ Foucault denotes how an authority perpetually observes,
analyses, and shapes citizens. Foucault believed plague control offered
the experimental experience for such means of disciplinary power as it
required minute-by-minute surveillance: ‘each individual, his place, his
body, his disease and his death’ had to be controlled by ‘means of
an omnipresent and omniscient power’ so that both the spread of the
disease, and the erosion of societal norms, could be prevented (Foucault,
1975: 197). Plague control thus became a template for how to minutely
survey, control and, ultimately, manage a population. ‘The plague-stricken

town… traversed throughout with hierarchy, surveillance, observation,
writing’, became ‘the utopia of the perfectly governed city’ (Foucault,
1975: 198).
The second theme we may consider is the tendency to ‘personify’ a
natural emergency. Although Thucydides attempted to understand plague
from a rational and biological perspective, such an approach is the excep-
tion in classical accounts. More common was the attributing of the disease
to some form of a supernatural force. Diodorius Siculus’ account of the
397 BC Sicilian plague, accredited to the Gods as an act of retribution
against the Carthaginian army, providing classic illustration (Longrigg,
1992: 28–29). Similarly, we may find outbreaks of disease in Dark Age
Europe being attributed to dragons (Horden, 1992).
It is not only Gods who have been blamed for natural disasters
but mortals as well. Jean-Jacques Rousseau famously blamed human-
ity’s custom of living in cramped cities for the mortality rate of the
Lisbon earthquake (Dynes, 2000: 106). Nonetheless, whist Rousseau
blamed humanity universally, more frequently it is minority and disad-
vantaged groups who are blamed and scapegoated for natural disasters.
The European black death, for example, was attributed to the Jews, as
the Nineteenth century Indian plague was to the Muslims (Chandavarkar,
1992; Slack, 2012). Race is not however the only factor in scapegoating,
Cholera outbreaks in Victorian England were blamed on the ‘uncivilised
behaviour’ of the ‘undeserving poor’ (Evans, 1992). Convinced that a
storm in the Firth of Forth had been created by the ‘North Berwick
Witches’, James VI initiated a surge in witch trials that saw up to two-
hundred women tortured and executed in Scotland; an entire gender
scapegoated for the tempest (Yeoman, 2004).5
Thus, from a quick survey of Intellectual History, we find two concerns
to be aware of and to add to the insight that will be provided by Schmitt.
The first is the associations of natural disasters with societal collapse justi-
fying extensive suspensions of liberties, a concern that will be particularly
acute when discussing the danger of authoritarian creep. Second, the
tendency to give a human face to a natural disaster, a key issue when
we come to discuss enmity in relation to the pandemic.
1.5 Outline of the Book

The structure of this book is formed as to answer the three central
thematic questions it seeks to address.
14 R. BROWN
Chapter 2 will ask if emergency powers necessitate a shift in society

towards increased authoritarianism. The Chapter will answer in the nega-
tive, arguing that this is dependent upon the transcending social and
political context. Chapter 3 will then proceed to argue for the impor-
tance of freedom of information and expression in an emergency. This,
I will argue, is not only crucial to defend against authoritarian creep but
also because an environment of free knowledge and expression is the best
environment from which to respond to an emergency.
I have proposed that one of the most significant normative challenges
to liberalism will come from Chinese Socialism, the latter being propelled
by its acclaimed ‘victory’ over the virus in Spring 2020. Thus, whilst
we may consider the case of China in comparison to other States when
assessing the potential for authoritarian shift, I will also need to consider
Chinese Socialism in-and-for-itself as to assess its potential to challenge
the liberal hegemony of norms. This will be done in Chapter 4, where I
will both present an interpretation of Chinese Socialism as well as assess
its potential to establish itself above and beyond the Chinese domestic
sphere, its ability to achieve international mimesis.
Having addressed the challenge posed by Chinese Socialism, the book
will then proceed to imagine the future of liberalism in a post-pandemic
world. To do so I will place Schmitt into conversation with Green to
advocate what I shall term a ‘hermeneutic’ approach to liberalism. This
theoretical approach will be introduced in relation to Political Obliga-
tion in Chapter 5 before being expanded to the international through a
discussion of Human Rights in Chapter 6.
Chapter 7 will consider the future nature of the political in a pandemic
and post-pandemic world. It will account for how pandemic politics have
largely been characterised by enmity. Whilst acknowledging enmity can
be a powerful solidifying force, I will argue this is not a suitable approach
to such issues as COVID-19 nor climate change (what will be a pressing
concern of our post-pandemic word). This final chapter will thus close
with a sketch of what the future character of political ought to be and
hermeneutic liberalism’s place in imagining this.
It is of final importance to stress that, whilst the book does seek to
consider potential paths forward, it does not seek to give comprehen-
sive solutions nor develop new complete systematic theories. Written very
much from within the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic (predomi-
nantly within the year 2021), my aim is to point a potential path forward.
I do not offer a comprehensive account of the end destination.
Notes
1. This book therefore does not seek to provide a comprehensive polit-
ical history of the pandemic nor give analysis or insight into the field
of epidemiology.
2. To be clear, the ‘event’ is not the ‘rise of China’, which has been
‘foreseen’ for decades, but rather COVID-19; the boost received by
Chinese Socialism being a potential normative consequence of this
‘event’.
3. The official theory that informs Chinese politics is ‘Xi Jinping
Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’,
often shortened to ‘Xi Jinping Thought’. I am using the term ‘Chi-
nese Socialism’ to denote both ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ as well as the
larger Chinese Marxist-Leninist normative tradition this emerges
from and which has developed in China over the last century.
4. The ‘Great Dying’ refers to the death of around 90% of the indige-
nous North America population largely as a result of exposure to
European diseases (Koch et al., 2019).
5. This trend of seeing personified forces behind natural disasters is also
evident in philosophical fiction. Albert Camus’ The Plague provides
the best example of this, where the titular plague is frequently
interpreted as metaphor for the Nazis. As Matthew Sharpe writes in
his 2020 guide to the Plague: the book is a ‘transparent allegory of
the Nazi occupation’ (Sharpe, 2020). Whilst philosophical fiction, it
should not be underestimated how much such works can influence
public consciousness, COVID-19 seeing a surge in purchases of
The Plague in 2020. Coverage can be found in The Guardian at
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/05/publishers-
report-sales-boom-in-novels-about-fictional-epidemics-camus-the-
plague-dean-koontz. Accessed on 06/12/2021.
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CHAPTER 2
Emergency Powers and Authoritarian Shift
Abstract Brown seeks to evaluate whether the use of emergency powers

necessitate a transition towards more authoritarian norms. He does so
by engaging with the thought of Schmitt in order to establish an analyt-
ical distinction between ‘sovereign’ and ‘commissary’ dictatorships before
applying this framework to consider the use of emergency powers in the
current pandemic, focusing in particular on China and Hungary. Brown
ultimately argues that the use of emergency powers does not necessitate
a shift towards authoritarian norms, arguing instead that this depends on
the political context which transcends the crisis. Nonetheless, this does
not mean vigilance is not needed to make sure such transition does not
happen.
Keywords COVID-19 · Emergency powers · Carl Schmitt · Hungary ·

China
The literature on ‘emergency powers’ is predominantly sceptical about

their usage, believing it risks giving a carte blanche to politicians and
creating an opportunity for political authorities to shift society towards
more authoritarian norms (Agamben, 2008; Honig, 2009; Lazar, 2009;
Sorell, 2013). In this chapter I will nonetheless question if the use of
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 21

Switzerland AG 2022
R. Brown, COVID-19 and International Political Theory,
International Political Theory,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91952-8_2
22 R. BROWN
emergency powers necessarily shift society in an authoritarian direction,

or, if such a shift is rather dependent on wider historical, social, and
political factors.
I will first engage with the thought of Schmitt to construct an analytical
framework for considering the potential for emergency powers to initiate
a shift towards authoritarianism, focusing in particular on his distinc-
tion between ‘commissary’ and ‘sovereign’ dictatorships. Section 2.2 will
consider the use of emergency powers in historical context as to inves-
tigate how a shift towards authoritarianism may be facilitated by their
usage. It will here be argued that a key catalyst in creating this shift
is the transcendent political and social context in which emergencies
occur rather than the use of emergency powers in-and-for-themselves.
Sections 2.3 and 2.4 will then discuss two States which have raised
concerns about increasing authoritarianism during the pandemic, China
and Hungary, whom I will argue represent the ‘sovereign’ and ‘commis-
sary’ usage of emergency powers, respectively.
2.1 Commissary and Sovereign Dictatorships

In his original 1921 preface to Dictatorship, Schmitt outlines his central
motivation as to correct the common misconception that the term ‘dic-
tatorship’ was synonymous with the abolishment of democracy. This
understanding, he insisted, was reductive, impoverished, and, most impor-
tantly, ignored how the exceptional use of powers wielded by a dictator
could actually save a democratic society in times of crisis (Schmitt, 2019:
xxxix).1 To correct this misconception, Schmitt sought to recover the
idea of ‘commissary dictatorship’: the limited use of emergency powers in
proportion to a threat. The analytical distinction between this ‘commis-
sary dictatorship’ and ‘sovereign dictatorship’ would subsequently form
the analytical distinction upon which his theory of emergency powers
rests.
The term ‘commissary’ denotes that the dictator is only a ‘commissar’
or ‘representative’ of the sovereign power, and not the sovereign power
itself. The emergency use of powers is thus only temporarily lent to the
dictator, who must return it to the sovereign once the emergency has
been dealt with. This crucially limits the use of emergency powers in
both proportion and duration to the particular emergency the commissar
has been tasked with solving, the position ceasing immediately once the
problem had been resolved. ‘Commissary dictatorship’ was thus a form
2 EMERGENCY POWERS AND AUTHORITARIAN SHIFT 23
of government designed to solve a very particular problem, and any use

beyond the specific issue was an abuse of office; ‘any dictatorship… that
does not make itself dependent on pursuing a concrete result… is an
arbitrary despotism’ (Schmitt, 2019: xlii).
Schmitt draws his analysis of the ‘commissary dictatorship’ largely from
classical and medieval history. The figure of the Roman dictator forms the
archetype: a citizen appointed by the senate to defend the Republic from
an immediate existential danger using the unlimited power enjoyed by
former kings on the understanding he must immediately relinquish said
power once the threat to Rome was eliminated (Schmitt, 2019: 1). When
emphasising the temporal and appropriate nature of the commissary
dictator’s power, Schmitt draws extensively from medieval history. The
Pope, Schmitt tells us, would empower Commissars to take extraordinary
measures—measures that were contrary to established rights, privileges,
and legal norms—in order to solve particular crises. Boniface IX, for
instance, empowered Papal commissars to dispose of monasterial assets,
without recourse to legal formalities or in consultation with abbots, as
they judged appropriate to address the financial crisis threatening the
Papacy (Schmitt, 2019: 41–42). This use of commissary representatives
was also executed by ‘worldly princes’ who would send commissary repre-
sentatives empowered with extraordinary measures to achieve specific
tasks, such as quell disorder, investigate corruption, or raise emergency
taxes (Schmitt, 2019: 39).
Schmitt explores these medieval examples to highlight two central
features of the commissar. Firstly, the commissar is never sovereign but
only the appointed representative of the sovereign power. Secondly, that
the exceptional powers the commissar is granted are always bound in
proportionality and duration to the special task he has been appointed to
achieve. Such historical investigation of the idea of the ‘commissar’ thus
lays the foundation of Schmitt’s ‘commissary dictatorship’: a temporary
non-sovereign institution which may be granted exceptional super-legal
powers, but nonetheless can only wield such powers as is appropriate to
meet a specific emergency threat and ceases upon the completion of this
task. Thus, whilst the commissary dictator may suspend law to achieve his
goal, Schmitt insists this is not a termination of the law as this suspen-
sion was only warranted to protect the legal order which will resume once
this task has been completed. Equally, whilst the commissary dictator may
temporarily limit citizen liberties, it does not abolish them: such tempo-
rary limitations are only justified as to preserve the legal order that enables
24 R. BROWN
citizen freedoms, and these liberties will be restored once the threat to this
order has passed. Ultimately then, this commissary dictatorship is not an
institution that abolishes a legal order in order to establish a more author-
itarian State, but rather a temporary suspension of a variety of legal rights
and privileges to ensure the legal order survives the emergency which
threatens it (Schmitt, 2019: xliii, 4).
The ‘sovereign dictator’, by contrast, is characteristically not limited to
a specific danger but rather establishes herself for an undefined period of
time. This change to a more ambiguous duration further impacts upon
dictatorship in relation to sovereignty. The reason why the ‘commissary
dictator’ was not ‘sovereign’ was because his power was always limited
in duration by the crisis he is tasked with completing. His power was
always borrowed and had to be returned, and, so long as power is only
temporarily borrowed, it cannot be considered sovereign; ‘power is not
sovereign when it is not permanent’ (Schmitt, 2019: 21). A ‘sovereign
dictatorship’ occurs when emergency powers cease to be time limited and
are established indefinitely, in a sense freeing it from the remits of the
specific achievable task. Equally, when a dictatorship is decoupled from a
particular task, it becomes not only unlimited in duration but also in the
extent of the powers it can wield as it has lost its reference of proportion-
ality. This ultimately decouples the dictator from the sovereign as powers
are borrowed indefinitely.
Schmitt thus focuses much of his analytical efforts on understanding
how a ‘commissary dictatorship’ could become ‘sovereign’: how powers
went from being temporarily borrowed to borrowed indefinitely. The
answer Schmitt found was in the notion of transition. ‘Sovereign dicta-
torships’ occur in history when a state of emergency ceases to function to
safeguard the presently existing society but rather to safeguard transition
into a new improved society.
Key in the development of ‘sovereign dictatorships’ was the Enlight-
enment belief in progress, the belief that new political societies could be
founded that would enable humanity’s potential for rationality and virtue
to flourish. Schmitt identifies Rousseau specifically for developing this
notion of progress to inform an understanding of ‘dictatorship’. Unlike
previous theorists who had regarded the State’s primary function as to
provide security for its citizens (such as, most importantly for Schmitt,
Hobbes), Rousseau regarded the primary function of the State was to
help improve its citizens. Believing that humans were naturally ‘good’,
and that it was corrupt societies that made them ‘bad’, Rousseau believed
the purpose of the State was to enable a society in which citizens could
fully realise their natural goodness and virtue. In order to transit into this
superior political community, the State was permitted to use exceptional
powers. Hence Rousseau’s infamous maxim ‘forced to be free’ (Rousseau,
1968: 64): citizen liberty could be severely curtailed in the present to
enable transition into a future ‘true state’ where their natural goodness
and morality, having now reached full potential, would enable citizens
to enjoy ‘true freedom’ (Schmitt, 2019: 105). Schmitt maintains this
‘sovereign dictatorship’ thus first emerges theoretically in Rousseau’s idea
of the ‘legislator’: a power that stands outside and before the new polity
and has unlimited powers to bring his vision of ‘true society’ into being
(Schmitt, 2019: 110–111).
The change between ‘commissary’ and ‘sovereign’ dictatorship is thus
caused by shifting the dictator’s appointed task from a specific clearly
defined problem, such as a financial crisis, to achieving a grander and
more ambiguous goal, such as creating a ‘better society’. Duration and
proportion subsequently become indistinct as the creation of a ‘new soci-
ety’ is far more ambiguous benchmark than solving a particular practical
task.
Furthermore, to transition into a new society, the old society must
be destroyed. There is subsequently no ‘sovereign’ to return borrowed
powers to, as she must be destroyed to enable transition. There is however
no sovereign in the future state either, for this has yet to be created. There
thus emerges a gap between the past sovereign, who was destroyed, and
the new sovereign, who is yet to come into being. It is in this gap that
the ‘sovereign dictator’ becomes ‘sovereign’, assuming sovereignty until
it can safely enable transition of power to the new sovereign who is yet to
come (assuming this ambiguous task is ever completed). The ‘sovereign
dictatorship’ is thus ‘sovereign’ ‘in transition’ (Schmitt, 2019: 127).2
It is this notion of forward transition that consequently makes its key
analytical distinction between ‘commissary’ and ‘sovereign dictatorship’.
As Schmitt outlines:
In practice… the commissary dictatorship suspends the constitution in

order to protect it – the very same one – in its concrete form.3 (Schmitt,
2019: 118)
The ‘sovereign dictatorship’ by contrast:

26 R. BROWN
does not suspend an existing constitution… rather it seeks to create condi-

tions in which a constitution – a constitution it regards as the true one – is
made possible. Therefore [sovereign] dictatorship does not appeal to an
existing constitution, but one that is still to come.4 (Schmitt, 2019: 119)
This destruction of the old order further reveals the crucial link between
‘sovereign dictatorship’ and revolution. Schmitt envisions the ‘sovereign
dictatorship’ as the political authority that establishes itself after a revolu-
tion. In Dictatorship, Schmitt focuses mostly on the French Revolution as
the event which brings into being the first truly ‘sovereign dictatorship’.
Nonetheless, it is perhaps Schmitt’s insightful analysis of the Marxist ‘dic-
tatorship of the proletariat’ that provides the most illustrative analysis of
the ‘sovereign dictatorship’ in his thought.
Schmitt understood the ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’ as a ‘sovereign
dictatorship’ justified on the basis it uses exceptional powers to enable the
transition to the idealised communist state (Schmitt, 2019: xl, 179). The
communist State thus did not have value for Marxism in-and-for-itself
but only as a ‘technical means’ to enable the transition into commu-
nism; the proletariat State does not aim to be ‘something definitive’ but
always ‘something transitional ’5 (Schmitt, 2019: xl). The justification of
the seizure of sovereign power and use of exceptional measures is granted
not by any concrete political reason but rather in accordance to the true
situation of communism that is promised by Marxist philosophy of history
(Schmitt, 2019: xli). Importantly the Marxist State thus derives its legit-
imacy from being in-between the revolution and the intended goal of
communism, its exceptional use of power being justified for enabling the
transition from one state to the other. Being based on this ambiguous
mission of enabling transition into ‘communism’ the limits and extent
of its power have no evident reference point and thus are effectively
boundless.
2.2 Emergency Powers in Historical Context

Schmitt’s distinction between ‘commissary’ and ‘sovereign’ dictatorship
has been received with scepticism, Richard Wolin describing it as ‘paper
thin’ (Wolin, 1990). Such scepticism has been further amplified by cyni-
cism over how dedicated Schmitt himself was to this distinction. As Wolin
highlights, in Political Theology Schmitt completely drops any analyt-
ical distinctions previously made in Dictatorship and simply advocates for
dictatorship tout court (Wolin, 1990: 397). Indeed, in claiming the ‘norm
is destroyed in the exception’, Political Theology would appear to resemble
more the transitionary ‘sovereign dictatorship’ than the norm-preserving
‘commissary dictatorship’ (Schmitt, 2005: 12).
It is not my intention here to defend Schmitt from these claims of
insincerity, that is a debate for Schmitt scholars. Nonetheless, the seeming
ease with which Schmitt’s distinction seems to slip into a more general
advocation of dictatorship tout court highlights the risk of such discourse.
A risk which is indeed nowhere clearer than when Schmitt later aligns
his thought with the Nazi seizure of power, praising the Führer for
destroying the weak old Weimar order and bringing the nation into a
stronger future state (Schmitt, 1940).
How such transition occurs is thus an important issue we must
consider. We must ask the question: does the implementation of emer-
gency powers in themself necessitate a shift towards authoritarianism,
despite attempts to distinguish between ‘preserving’ and ‘transitionary’
usages?; or is such a shift rather due to transcending political and social
factors?
Following the collapse of the democratic governments in post-war
Europe, there was a spike in interest in how democracies can transition
into more autocratic regimes. Focus centred upon the role of emergency
powers and how their use served as a mechanism in enabling this tran-
sition (Agamben, 2008: 6–7). Carl J. Friedreich argued that Schmitt’s
distinction between ‘commissary’ and ‘sovereign’ dictatorships, whilst
sound in theory, was too hard to define in practice. He thus concluded
that all use emergency powers, even when designed to protect the consti-
tution, often end up overthrowing it and all forms of emergency powers
are liable to be transformed into totalitarian schemes if conditions become
favourable, conditions such as ‘total war’ and the social, political, and
economic crises that characterises its aftermath (Friedrich, 1950: 584).
Also focusing on interwar Europe, Herbert Tingsten observed the
frequency of the use of emergency powers to be a potent catalyst in
the transition from democracy to autocracy. In societies that transi-
tioned towards totalitarianism, it was noted that emergency powers were
not used sparingly but rather became a common mechanism used to
address political issues, to such an extent that they became a normal part
of government. Tingsten thus concluded, although emergency powers
are theoretically combatable with democratic States, ‘a systematic and
regular exercise of the institution necessarily leads to the “liquidation” of
28 R. BROWN
democracy’ (Tingsten, 1934: 333). Agamben (2008) similarly notes that

Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution was used by Chancellor Heinrich
Brüning on more than two hundred and fifty occasions between 1930
and 1932.6 These emergency decrees were further used for a variety of
purposes to meet a range of ‘threats’ to the Republic, from dealing with
political dissent to addressing economic problems. The consequence of
such frequent use was that, when Hitler became Chancellor in 1933,
Germany had been under effective presidential dictatorship for three
years. This made Hitler’s final transition of Germany into the Totalitarian
Third Reich much smoother, effectively providing precedent for the 1934
Enabling Act.
Friedreich and Tingsten are both largely sceptical about the use of
emergency powers, a concern later shared by Agamben. Nonetheless,
both do, at least hypothetically, believe it is possible for emergency powers
to be used without causing a transition into authoritarianism. In historical
practice however, a shift towards authoritarianism has occurred due to the
pressures of the specific historical context and the increasing frequency
of their use. As Tingsten (1934) most poignantly surmises, emergency
powers should be able to preserve a society without creating an author-
itarian transition. Used in the social and political context of interwar
Europe, however, emergency powers became a catalyst for a shift towards
authoritarianism.
The importance of context has been further highlighted by studies in
the use of emergency powers since the end of the Second World War.
Yoav Mehozay (2016) has highlighted how both the issue of transcen-
dent political climate and subsequent frequency of use of emergency
powers have contributed to authoritarian elements of the Israeli State.
The transcendent political context in Israel’s case is the continual conflict
with Arab neighbours and Palestinian groups which has led to a sense of
perpetual existential danger, indeed, a sense of ‘siege’ in Israeli society.7
With such a never-ending siege-like situation it has become easy for
emergency legislation to be regarded as ‘normal’ and incorporated into
the everyday functioning of the ‘besieged State’. This normalisation has
in turn made emergency powers an attractive tool for achieving polit-
ical goals not related to the survival of the State8 Subsequent use of
exceptional powers in this way further entrenches them into the normal
functioning of government and shifts Israel in a more authoritarian
direction.
This pattern is also evident in the Indian subcontinent and East Asia.
The frequency of the use of emergency powers has for instance been iden-
tified as a catalyst for establishing autocratic norms in Pakistan (Kalhan,
2010) and Thailand (Harding, 2010). In Thailand in particular, the prac-
tice of military coup has become normalised as a mechanism for dealing
with crises to such an extent that ‘exceptional force’ supplants the rule of
law in times of the slightest uncertainty (Harding, 2010). Again however,
the frequency and subsequent normalisation of emergency powers is a
result of overarching political and social context. Victor Ramraj and Arun
Thiruvengadam (2010) have highlighted a ‘postcolonial’ aspect to the use
of emergency powers in Asia, such measures having been frequently used
by colonial powers to suppress local populations and maintain imperial
dominance. When the colonial powers retreated, and political instability
ensured, the new Asian States resorted to the tried and tested measures
of maintaining control they had learnt from the colonists: the use of
emergency powers and exceptional force.
Maitrii Aung-Thwin (2010) has argued this was particularly the case in
Burma, members of the Burmese government having previously observed
the British use of exceptional use of force to maintain control during the
Burma Rebellion of 1930–1932. More than just copying technical means
of maintaining control, however, Aung-Thwin argues that the postcolo-
nial authorities inherited the British mindset of believing the Burmese
to be ‘not ready’ to embrace alternative forms of government’ (2010:
211). Mehozay similarly notes that the emergency measures used by Israel
have strong resemblance to British colonial practices in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the fact that the Israeli State emerged through military action
during the unstable climate of British withdrawal meant Israel was estab-
lished in a sense of emergency, a sense which has lasted since its 1948
inception (Mehozay, 2016: 17, 31–32).
In this postcolonial context, it is notable that the use of emergency
powers are, from the outset, not used in a ‘commissary’ sense—they are
not trying to ‘preserve’ the old colonial regimes—but in a ‘sovereign’
sense: they are seeking to enable transition into new independent States.
Here the problem of such an ambiguous future goal becomes evident,
especially when the transcendent political climate complicates the journey.
When the government deems the people are not ready for this new state
and require more extensive autocratic guidance, such as in Burma, or
when regional instability creates a sense of ‘siege’ in which ‘normal-
ity’ does not seem yet possible, as in Israel, it creates the opportunity
30 R. BROWN
for governments to continue to use exceptional measures indefinitely,

these eventually becoming ‘normalised’ and incorporated into the regular
function of government. Ramraj has termed this the ‘emergency power
paradox’: States emerging from conflict or colonial rule often require the
use of emergency powers to establish a new autonomous polity, however,
the greater the frequency and duration in which such powers are used, the
greater emerging States undermine any commitment to transition into the
promised ‘new’ ‘normal’ state (Ramraj, 2010: 35). The consequence of
this being that States become trapped in a perpetual state of emergency
and the ‘transition’ promised is never complete.
Such contextual discussion reveals that, whilst emergency powers
should be able to be used in principle to preserve society without creating
a shift into authoritarian norms, this is not always the result in practice.
Often this shift towards authoritarianism is the result of a transcendent
political and social context which creates a constant sense of instability,
such as in interwar Europe and postcolonial Asia. This transcendent insta-
bility makes States more likely to use emergency powers with increasing
frequency resulting in the increased normalisation of emergency powers.
Crucially however, this indicates that the use of emergency powers in-
and-for-themselves do not necessitate a shift towards authoritarianism.
They rather act as a catalyst when used in certain transcendent political
and social contexts which encourage an increasingly frequent use of such
powers.
2.3 China---A Sovereign Dictatorship

When founding the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Mao Tse-tung
(1961) sought to address the question of the continued existence of the
State, the institution’s abolishment being a central aspect of Marxist-
Leninist thought. Mao announced he would indeed abolish it, but he
could not do so ‘yet’. Why? Because the Marxist-Leninist movement was
threatened by both reactionaries at home and imperialists abroad. Like
Israel, China was under siege. The machine of State was thus required
to defeat China’s enemies and enable transition into the classless ‘great
harmony’ (1961: 418). Mao thus essentially founded the PRC as a
‘sovereign dictatorship’: its raison d’être is to enable transition into the
promised future ‘harmonious’ society. As a ‘sovereign dictatorship’ under
siege, the PRC effectively exists in a continual state of exception and
enjoys exceptional powers whose reference point is the vague ‘harmo-

nious era’ promised in its founding; China ‘operates in a permanent, but
almost never-declared, state of emergency’ (Delisle, 2010: 342).
The notion of legitimacy being grounded on the ability to enable
transition has received new emphasis under Xi, who has stressed the legit-
imacy of his governance on the ability to usher in a prosperous ‘New
Ear’ (Brown, 2020; Jiang, 2018). In this notion of ‘transition’, the idea
of exceptional action and ‘struggle’ is particularly prominent; Xi evoking
the spirit of Mao’s ‘long march’ to communicate that China is still on
a revolutionary transitional journey towards its harmonious future, and
crucially requires the CCP’s exceptional leadership if it is to reach its goal
(Xi, 2014). This message is also frequently used in CCP propaganda. The
commonly utilised slogan, ‘No CCP, No New China’, clearly links the
Party-State’s sovereignty with the idea of successful transition into the
future (Collins & O’Brien, 2019: 60; Zhang et al., 2018). Measures that
would appear to be intrusive or authoritarian, such as internet censor-
ship and control of the media, are thus justified as exceptional measures
necessary to secure China’s transition (Xi, 2014, 2017).
Intriguingly, my attempts to use the notion of ‘sovereign dictatorship’
as means to interpret the relationship between Party-State legitimacy and
transition are paralleled by efforts of Chinese Scholars to (re)read Schmitt
as to explain, and justify, the CCP’s rule. Ding Xiaodong (2017) explic-
itly refers to Schmitt when justifying the CCP’s legitimacy on the grounds
it can provide continual ‘momentum’ towards the goals outlined by the
revolution. Qi Zheng (2015) meanwhile draws from Schmitt’s under-
standing of ‘sovereign dictatorship’—in the sense of an exceptional use
of power to safeguard transition from an old political order into a new
one—to characterise the PRC as a polity that exists in a ‘state of exception’
and in which exceptional measures are necessary to facilitate the transition
into a new political order. It is also of important note that Jiang Shigong,
a notable ‘orthodox’ interpreter of ‘Xi Jinping Thought’, is simultane-
ously the scholar who is largely responsible for popularising Schmitt in
China (Xu, 2013: 27). Like Ding and Qi, Jiang (2018) grounds the
Party-Sate’s legitimacy in its ability to realise the promise of the revo-
lution and bring the ‘New Era’ into being. The notion of a transitionary
‘sovereign dictatorship’ is thus not only an external lens through which
we can better understand China but also an idea central to contemporary
Chinese self-understanding.
32 R. BROWN
This is crucial as it means China approached the COVID-19 pandemic

not from a position of ‘normality’ but in an already existent situation
of exceptional transition. Subsequently COVID-19 was not presented
as a threat that had to be eliminated so that the ‘old normal’ could
be returned to, but, on the contrary, as a threat that had to be over-
come on China’s transitional journey forward to the ‘New Era’. This was
acutely packaged by State Councillor Wang Yi who situated COVID-19
in China’s forward transition when stating: ‘COVID-19 cannot arrest the
Chinese people’s determined march toward national rejuvenation’ (Wang,
2020). Clearly China is not trying to return or restore an old norm but
continue transition into the future. Crucially, the ultimate reference point
for the proportionality of exceptional powers used in China will not be
restricted to the elimination of the specific threat of the virus but how
they contribute to the transition forward into the New Era.
Understanding China as a ‘sovereign dictatorship’ will be fundamental
for assessing such issues as freedom of information and speech and the
prospects of Chinese Socialism which will be discussed in Chapters 3 and
4.
2.4 Hungary---A Commissary Dictatorship

Hungary’s ‘state of danger’, declared on the 11th of March 2020, does,
at least on the surface, appear to emulate the principles we would asso-
ciate with a ‘commissary dictatorship’. Act XII 2020 on the Containment
of Coronavirus, which outlines the framework for the use of ‘extraordi-
nary measures’, is notable for its seeming proportionality. The Act makes
specific claim that the purpose of the State of danger is ‘of preventing,
controlling and eliminating the human epidemic’. The extraordinary
powers it grants the Prime Minister are further described as ‘to the extent
necessary and proportionate to the objective pursued’.9 Yet, despite this,
Hungary’s ‘state of danger’ became one of the most controversial decla-
rations of emergency in 2020, receiving extensive criticism from bodies
such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) (Gall, 2020a) and the European
Union (EU) (Burić, 2020).
The reason why Hungary’s ‘State of Danger’ has been so controver-
sial lies in the detail of its provision and the Hungarian political context
it has occurred in. Included in the list of normal rights and procedures
suspended under Act XII of 2020 was the suspension of by-elections and
national and local referendums. As Umut Korkut (2020) explains, such
measures can be interpreted as having external political goals beyond

public protection as it was in local elections that opposition parties
have historically won ground against the ruling Fidesz party. Act XII
further makes a ‘felony’ the hindrance of measures enacted to prevent
the spread of the virus. Whilst this included acts that would obstruct
measures such as quarantining it also includes those that ‘states or dissem-
inates any untrue fact or any misrepresented true fact with regard to
the public danger’. Those found guilty of such offences can face up to
five years imprisonment. Such extensive punishments for ambiguously
framed crimes have been regarded as severe restriction on freedom of
speech disproportionate to the efforts required to contain the virus (Gall,
2020a; Korkut, 2020). Furthermore, given that Hungarian State media
frequently decry liberal concerns about Hungary’s ‘State of Danger’ as
‘fake news’ (Kovács, 2020a) and ‘coordinated attacks’ (Kovács, 2020b),
it would seemingly give credence to concerns that such legislation could
be used to silence liberal opposition to Fidesz. As Lydia Gall, senior
researcher for HRW articulates, it ‘raises genuine fears that the law aims
to crush Hungary’s last critical voices’ (Gall, 2020a).
When placed against the recent political history of Hungary, the ‘state
of danger’ also becomes concerning in terms of frequency. Hungary
previously declared a state of emergency as recently as 2017 in response
to ‘the dangers presented by mass migration’ (About Hungary, 2017).
Hungary’s lifting of the 2020 ‘state of danger’ in May 2020 occurred
simultaneously with the presentation of a new bill granting the Hungarian
state the ability to enter a state of exception for six months, with the possi-
bility of indefinite renewal on the advice of the Chief Medical Officer of
the State. Given that the Chief Medical Officer is a position under govern-
ment control, this arguably allows the Hungarian leadership to suspend
basic laws and rights when it deems fit (Gall, 2020b). The past use of
emergency decrees coupled with the easing of the government to enter
into a ‘state of danger’ in the future would certainly seem to suggest an
endeavour to incorporate emergency powers more closely into the normal
functioning of government.
It is also important to observe the Hungarian State’s use of emergency
power appears closely linked to Fidesz’s ideological agenda. A Horizon
2020 report observed in 2018 that Hungary was moving significantly
away from the ‘liberal’ social and legal norms, characterised by the EU,
with Viktor Orbán’s regime deliberately attempting to define itself in
34 R. BROWN
opposition to liberalism. Central to this shift in norms has been the depri-
vation of fundamental rights on Hungary’s borders, a political act that was
largely enabled by the Hungarian state of emergency of 2017 (Gyollai,
2018: 53). In 2020 the ‘state of danger’ appeared to be used once more as
a window of opportunity to shift Hungary in a more authoritarian direc-
tion and achieve goals external to the containment of COVID-19. This
would appear evident in the Hungarian State’s desire to push through
legislation that ended legal recognition of transgender and intersex people
during the ‘state of danger’ (Gall & Knight, 2020).
Hungary’s ‘state of danger’ did not signify a threshold in which the
polity transformed into an authoritarian regime. Act XII was not Orbán’s
Enabling Act. However, it would be mistaken to concur with Hungarian
State media that concerns of the State’s use of emergency powers were
just ‘fake news’ propagated by ‘liberal media and its noisy Twittersphere’
(Kovács, 2020a). When looked at in detail, and in context, what instead
emerges is an increasing frequency and ease in which Hungary seeks to
use emergency legislation, risking the incorporation of such methods into
the normal function of government. This concern is intensified by the
apparent willingness of the Orbán regime to use such emergency situa-
tions to achieve ideological goals external to the elimination of existential
threats and, ultimately, slowly shift Hungarian norms away from liber-
alism. Events in Hungary may not be quite as ‘dramatic’ and ‘epochal’ as
the Reichstag Fire, but they represent how emergency powers can be used
more slowly and subtly to shift a nation in a more authoritarian direction.
Hungary thus provides an illustrative example of both the use and
potential dangers of a ‘commissary dictatorship’ in an emergency situa-
tion.10 The Hungarian case is notable in that the authoritarian shift is
not caused by the emergency legislation alone, but the legislation is rather
used as a vehicle to push society towards a pre-existing ideological goal.
It is important to acknowledge this section has focused exclusively
on examples where emergency powers have created concerns about an
authoritarian shift. States such as New Zealand and Taiwan, have, in
notably different contexts, been able to use emergency powers without
creating such an acute fear of increasing authoritarianism (Dodds et al.,
2020). Nonetheless, discussion of States in which concerns have been
raised was necessary to explore how emergency powers may shift countries
in more authoritarian directions in our contemporary world.
In this respect, Hungary is particularly illustrative and interesting. In
Schmitt’s thinking, transition is associated with ‘sovereign dictatorships’
Another random document with
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I do not think I have been able to tell the world anything new about the
poet or his surroundings. But the man 'who hedn't a bit of fish in him, and
was no mountaineer,' seems to have been in the eyes of the people always at
his studies; 'and that because he couldn't help it, because it was his hobby,'
for sheer love, and not for money. This astonished the industrious money-
loving folk, who could not understand the doing work for 'nowt,' and
perhaps held the poet's occupation in somewhat lighter esteem, just because
it did not bring in 'a deal o' brass to the pocket.' I think it is very interesting,
however, to notice how the woman part of the Rydal Mount family seemed
to the simple neighbourhood to have the talent and mental ability; and there
must have been, both about Dorothy Wordsworth and the poet's daughter
Dora, a quite remarkable power of inspiring the minds of the poor with
whom they came in contact, with a belief in their intellectual faculties and
brightness and cleverness. If Hartley Coleridge was held by some to be
Wordsworth's helper, it was to Dorothy he was supposed by all to turn if
'ivver he was puzzelt.' The women had 'the wits, or best part of 'em,'—this
was proverbial among the peasantry, and, as having been an article of rural
faith, it has been established out of the mouths of all the witnesses it has
been my lot to call.
WITH THE BLACK-HEADED GULLS IN

CUMBERLAND.
There is no part of the Cumberland coast so full of witchery and romance

as the point where Muncaster Fell comes down to the sea. The rivers of Irt,
Mite and Esk, with their memories of the pearl-fisheries of olden time, swirl
down toward the ancient harbour of the mythic 'King Aveling's Town.' One
cannot look across the pool at full tide without thought of how the Vikings
pushed their ships ashore here, when they came from Mona's Isle to harry
Cumberland.
But the sound of earlier civilisations is in our ears as one gazes across the
Ravenglass sand-dunes; for here beside us is the great cavern of ancient
oaken-logs and earth, wherein the Cymri buried their dead in prehistoric
time, and there within a stone's throw still upstands the seaside residence of
some great Roman general, who was determined apparently to enjoy a well-
heated house, and to do honour to the genius loci. No one who visits 'Walls'
Castle, as it is called, but must be struck with the remains of the 'tepidarium,'
and the little niche that held the statue of the tutelary god, or a bust of the
presiding Cæsar, within the ample hall.
Away at our back rises the Muncaster Fell with its grey beacon-tower, its
herd of deer, its wind-blown oaks, its primrose and bluebell haunted woods,
that slope towards the Vale of Esk. Further inland, sheltered by its
magnificent wall of forestry, stands rose-red one of the most interesting of
our northern castles, with its long terrace-lawn of quite unequalled grace and
loveliness. There in sheltered combe the rhododendrons bloom from earliest
spring, and the air will to-day be honeysweet from laurel-flower far and
wide.
But I was bent on seeing an older people than Cymri, Roman, Viking, or
Castle-Lord, albeit the line of Pennington reached far into the past, and
suited well his ancient castle hold. I had come in the last week of April, by
courteous invitation, to renew acquaintance with that fast-growing colony of
black-headed gulls that make the dunes of Ravenglass famous.
A boat was called, and leaving the pebbly beach that 'Stott of Oldham' so
delights to paint, we rowed across the flooding tide of the Ravenglass
harbour to the sand-dunes of happy quietude, where the oyster-catchers were
sunning themselves, and where the sheldrake in her nesting season loves to
hide. As one went forward over the dunes one felt back in the great desert of
the Badiet-Tih, and expected to see Bedouins start from the ground, and
camels come in single file with solemn sway round the sedge-tufted, wind-
blown hillocks and hummocks of glaring sand.
Then suddenly the silence of the waste was broken by a marvellous

sound, and a huge cloud of palpitating wings, that changed from black to
white and hovered and trembled against the grey sea or the blue inland hills,
swept by over-head. The black-headed gulls had heard of our approach, and
mightily disapproved of our trespass upon their sand-blown solitude.
We sat down and the clamour died: the gulls had settled. Creeping warily
to the crest of a great billow of sand, we peeped beyond. Below us lay a
natural amphitheatre of grey-green grass that looked as if it were starred with
white flowers innumerable. We showed our heads and the flowers all took
wing, and the air was filled again with sound and intricate maze of
innumerable wings.
We approached, and walking with care found the ground cup-marked

with little baskets or basket-bottoms roughly woven of tussock grass or sea-
bent. Each casket contained from two to three magnificent jewels. These
were the eggs we had come so far to see. There they lay—deep brown
blotched with purple, light bronze marked with brown, pale green dashed
with umber, white shading into blue. All colours and all sizes; some as small
as a pigeon's, others as large as a bantam's. Three seemed to be the general
complement. In one nest I found four. The nests were so close to one another
that I counted twenty-six within a radius of ten yards; and what struck one
most was the way in which, instead of seeking shelter, the birds had
evidently planned to nest on every bit of rising ground from which swift
outlook over the gull-nursery could be obtained.
Who shall describe the uproar and anger with which one was greeted as
one stood in the midst of the nests? The black-headed gull swept at one with
open beak, and one found oneself involuntarily shading one's face and
protecting one's eyes as the savage little sooty-brown heads swooped round
one's head. But we were not the only foes they had had to battle with. The
carrion crow had evidently been an intruder and a thief; and many an egg
which was beginning to be hard set on, had been prey to the black robber's
beak. One was being robbed as I stood there in the midst of the hubbub.
Away, for what seemed the best part of a mile, the 'gullery' stretched to
the north in the direction of Seascale; and one felt that, thanks to the public-
spirited owner of the seaboard, and the County Council of Cumberland, the
black-headed gull was not likely to diminish in this generation.
Back to the boat we went with a feeling that we owed large apologies to
the whole sea-gull race for giving this colony such alarm, and causing such
apparent disquietude of heart, and large thanks to the lord of Muncaster for
his ceaseless care of the wild sea-people whom each year he entertains upon
his golden dunes.
That evening I went back in memory to the marvellous sight in the

Gullery at Ravenglass. My thoughts took sonnet form as follows:
THE HOPE OF LIFE.
Sudden the lilies of each lonely mound

Sprang into voice and palpitating wing;
I seemed a guilty and unwelcome thing;
Ten thousand shadows round me and around
Perplexed the air and danced along the ground;
Each sooty head, in passion, dared to fling
A world's defiance—and I felt the sting
And arrows of that deprecating sound.
Then gazing downward at my feet I saw

The silent cause of all these sorrowful cries,
—Large jewels, blotched and brown and green and blue,
In simple caskets wove from rushy straw;
I thanked high Heaven for hearts so good and true,
And shared their hope for life that never dies.
They are a far-wandering nation these black-headed gulls. I had seen

separate members of the tribe on the banks of the Neva, and later, on the
banks of the Nile; for they are an adventurous race, and may be found as far
north as Archangel and as far south as Nubia, but the next time that I saw
them in any number they had changed not only their appearance but their
manners. The black or, more properly speaking, brown head of the gull had
become grey. It seems they only wear their black helmets or bonnets in
summer time. Now it was winter, and they were as mild as doves—tamer
birds could hardly be seen, and the history of their taming, as indeed of their
presence so far inland as the Keswick valley, was very simple. There had
been a very cruel wholesale poisoning of the fish in the river Greta—the
black-headed gulls had heard of it, and came up the Derwent in great
numbers to the feast. It cannot have been all pleasure, and to judge by the
looks of some of the greedier of the class colic abounded. Whether it was the
abundance of the feast or the after pain, that made an impression on the gull,
I know not, but from that day to this the black-headed gentry of the seaboard
have had such affection for our vale that any storm at sea or any scarcity of
food brings them in great numbers to our valley pastures.
We had a hard winter three years ago, and wherever the rooks were seen
upon the ground, the black flock was dappled with the white sea gull, and
the dolorous voice of the crow was drowned in the laughter of the black-
headed gull.
Very grateful were we in those sad and sombre winter mornings to hear
the gulls laughing round our house-roofs, and not the least enjoyable thought
as we went to our breakfast-table was the knowledge that these wild sea-
people had come to trust us, and were willing to be our almoners.
There was one house in the valley, set upon a grassy hill overlooking the
lake, which seemed especially to have charm for the bird visitors. Swift of
ear, as of eye, the black-headed gulls noticed that the family went to
breakfast at the sound of a gong. No sooner did that gong echo across the
lawn, than the heaven became white with wings—a click at the gate was
heard, and a maid with a large pancheon of food specially prepared—hot and
tasty—was seen to come on to the grass and toss out the meal, in splotches,
round about her. Then what had been a silent grey undulating cloud of wings
broke up into a tangled mass of down-sweeping pink legs and up-sweeping
white wings, and with the noise of laughter and talk unimaginable, the happy
people fell to feeding.
I do not think that anything more dainty can be imagined than that swift
balance of up-tilted wing and down-reaching rosy feet, unless it be the
consummate care and nicety with which, before the black-headed gull put
beak to food, it tucked those long sweeping slender wings close to its side.
Now and again as they fed, the whole flock would rise momentarily into
air and float up as though blown from the earth by some invisible breath, and
then, as silently and simultaneously, sink to earth again.
At times one noticed how, rising up, they seemed to move in exactly one
position, moving their yellow rosy-stained beaks and grey heads from right
to left as though they feared an enemy. Yet they had no need to fear, for it
was quite clear that the rooks had been specially engaged by them to be their
sentinels. There they sat each in solitary sable-hood, on the trees all round
the lawn,—policemen on guard, and of such good manners, that until the
visitors from the sea had eaten and were full, they did not think of claiming
their share of the broken victual.
What astonished one most as these black-headed gulls came morning

after morning to the sound of the gong, was their apparent determination to
lose no time about their food. They sat down to table and rose up as one bird,
but they were not more than ten minutes about their meal, and there was
some reason for this. There were other breakfast tables spread for them on
other lawns; the gong at Derwent Hill was after all but summons to a first
course.
How mild, how gentle, with what dove-like tenderness did these grey-
headed people of the sea appear as with merry laughter they sailed about my
head, their feet tucked up like coral pink jewels against their breast; how
unlike those fierce black-headed guardians of their nests and young, who had
dashed at one, with open beak and scolding voice and angry wing, upon the
spring-tide dunes of Ravenglass.
AT THE GRASMERE PLAY.
What a wonderful people these Westmoreland folk are; we see them on

the Wrestling Ground at Pavement end, and we think we never saw such
'playing.' We enter a Westmoreland dale farm, and we feel, if ever men and
women were born to make two ends meet by the care of sheep or cattle,
these are the people. We take lodgings in a Westmoreland village for a
holiday season, and though it may be quite true that the landlady doesn't rave
about the scenery, and is rather of the type of the good woman-body who
had lived at Rydal Mount before she became lodging-house keeper, and who
said to my friend, 'Yes, yes, I am a tidy good cook and a decentish
housekeeper, but I don't know nowt about sunsets or sic like, and I don't
need, they've never been in my line,' it is at the same time true that, for
looking after one's creature wants and entering into the doings of every day
and making one feel part and parcel of the household, a Westmorland
housekeeper is bad to beat.
But though I thought I knew the capacity of Westmoreland folk pretty

well, a new surprise was in store for me as I took my seat in the temporary
play-house at Grasmere and learned that Westmoreland folk can not only
play in the Grasmere wrestling ring, but can play on the boards and before
the footlights also. It is quite true that the Grasmere people have had nearly a
generation of training in the dramatic art. A late rector, who was much
interested in looking after the recreations of the village, had translated for
them many a simple pastoral play from the French, and hardly a Christmas
came round, but he and his family, one of whom was herself a talented writer
of country plays, trained the villagers to give their neighbours a play, and the
children in the Bands of Hope to act charades. Since his time another family
who are much honoured at Grasmere, and who have the same kind of
enthusiasm for the dramatic capacity of the village, had carried on the work,
with the result that at a moment's notice, for any simple play the daughter of
the house might write or adapt, she could count on having as her players
seventeen or eighteen of the villagers who would seem born for the parts she
entrusted to them. There was no rivalry, no 'fratching' from house to house
because this person or that person was not selected for this or that particular
part; on the contrary, the village had such confidence in the conductor of the
village troupe that if Miss S. thought that So-and-so was to take this part and
So-and-so the other, that was enough, and not another word was to be said.
Meanwhile the village had come to look upon the village play as part of its
very life and soul. Grasmere in winter time would not be recognised by the
average tourist. It is a village of peace absolute and tranquillity beyond
words.
From the earliest times 'Cursmas' has been looked upon as a time when
everybody in the dale should enjoy himself. In the old days, when the
fiddlers went round from farm to farm between Christmas-day and New
Year's Day, and when the Merry Night (or Murry Neet) was held from place
to place, the Grasmere folk knew that, however hard they worked for the rest
of the year, at least they would 'laike' until the Twelfth Night, and precious
little work would go forward in the dales for the first fortnight of each glad
new year. The desire for some simple and rational form of amusement with
the beginning of every year has never died out of their blood, so that a
village play seems to fill a need which is part of their very nature. 'Why, we
could not live without it,' said a Grasmere body to me; 'it's the brightest spot
in our lives.' 'I can't tell you how dramatic it makes me feel,' said another. 'I
am going thro' my dialogue at all times o' day.' My husband said, 'You've had
company to-day then.' 'Ay, ay,' I replied, 'rare company. I was taking two or
three parts in second Act, you see, and changing voices, that was all.'
'But where do you get your theatrical properties?' I said. 'Who manages
the scene-shifting and all the rest of it?' 'Oh, as for scene-shifting, that is all
managed by that great hairy-faced man that you saw going down the road
just now; he is a grand stage manager and has been at it for twenty years or
more.' I did not see him again until after the close of the performance, when
I noticed him with his pocket-handkerchief in an unconventional way
fanning out the footlights, and then going up on a ladder to puff out the oil
lamps above the stage. 'And as for properties,' the good dame replied, 'if you
mean by that the things we have on the stage, well everything is lent—there
is crockery from one house and chairs from another, and the dresses, why
they are the old originals that were worn by our grandmothers, and great-
grandmothers. We all know to what farm or to what house we must go for
this or that particular dress, and it is lent very willingly.' 'And do you have
large audiences?' I said. 'Large audiences, well, if th' room would hold
double the number we could fill it, because folk of all maks and sizes come
together. This year we are giving a special afternoon performance for the
quality, but I am told that all reserved seats have been booked for weeks.'
It was growing dark as I stood by the cottage door. The omnibus, as it

drove down from the Raise gap with folk from Keswick coming to see the
play, was sending sparks out behind from its 'slipper,' as though it were
making fireworks. And soon I saw the lamp-lighter lighting up the oil lamps
in the quaintly intricate lanes of the village beside the Mere. Knots of people
were gathered already at their door-ways talking of the play, and already folk
were drawing towards the village hall near the Red Lion. I soon joined them,
and passed up a break-neck stairway to a big barn-like room, the back part of
which was filled with rough boards knocked up into temporary benches, and
the forepart had wooden cottage chairs for reserved seats. The drop-scene
was down—the lake and island with Helm Crag and Dunmail Raise, as seen
from Loughrigg, on a summer evening.
A big moon shone in a solid sort of way in mid-heaven, and was

repeated at intervals right down through the picture, as though the scene-
painters would say: 'This is the moon, it is rising now, and there it is fully
risen.' But I was assured that this was the result of some accident by fire that
had taken place years ago in the said drop-scene, and that these moons were,
after all, only the patches that repaired the beautiful picture. Three fiddlers
and a piano were making lively music when the bell tinkled and the curtain
went up. It was a very simple scene—the village carpenter sitting in his shop
working away at a stool, but it was to the life; and the Jacob who was
working there, with his red handkerchief round his throat, spoke and acted to
the life, and well he might—he was a village carpenter. A tourist came upon
the scene, and got very little change out of Jacob, and less still out of Jacob's
mother, Mrs. Rawlinson, who (after a very amusing dialogue with the
tourist) determined to allow him to be her lodger. She made him pay double
the usual price because he asked for 'sec a new faddlement as a seven o'clock
dinner.' Dolly, the maid, comes in with a handkerchief bound over her head,
as is the fashion of the North-country maids when they are dusting or
brushing up. They fall to talk:
Mrs. Rawlinson: 'I'se goin' to have mair nor sebben shillings a room this
time, but I was forced to ask a good price, for he'll be wanting late dinners,
and a' maks o' cooking and faddlements. What does ta think wawmlets'll be,
Dolly?'
Dolly: 'Nay, I never heard tell o' sec a thing.'
Mrs. Rawlinson: 'And grilled bones to his breakfast; but I kna' what
them'll be, just a marra bone served up hot in a napkin. I can mannish that
finely. Then he talked about a dish o' curry; that'll certainly be some mak o' a
French stew, made rare and hot wid pepper and an onion or two.'
Dolly: 'What, thou's goin' to be sadly tewed.'

Mrs. Rawlinson: 'Nay. I was nobbut a bit put about at first, but I mean to
ask Betty Braithwaite to lend me her beuk as larns yan to mak hundreds and
hundreds of things 'at I never heard of, nor naebody else, I wud think.'
As long as I live I shall remember the delightful get-up of this said Mrs.
Rawlinson, with her high black cap and flower in it, and her old-fashioned
criss-cross shawl, and her spotless white 'brat'; and the way in which she
pronounced the word 'omelette' as 'waumlett' convulsed the house.
The second scene in that first act was one that went home to the hearts of
all, for if the Westmoreland folk love one thing more dearly than another it is
'a sale.' The sale is really the excitement of the winter time. I believe that if
nobody was changing farms they would compel someone in the
neighbourhood to pretend that he was, that a sale might be held. It is not the
fierce excitement of bidding one against the other that causes the great
gathering at the sale, but 'everybody's tied to go,' as they say—bound to go
to the sale, just as everybody is bound to go when they are bid to a funeral. It
would not be friendly not to do so, and high, low, rich and poor, one with
another, meet at the sales, as De Quincey has reminded us, to see one
another and to hear how the world is stirring.
The Grasmere Players in this sale scene were all of the manner born, and
a young mason played the part of 'Tom Mashiter' (auctioneer) with great
delight to himself and to his audience.
'Here's t' fadther and muther and t' dowter he cried, as he put three
teapots together. 2s. 6d. for the lot just to get us into the bidding! Here's a
pair of copper scales; see how true they hang! Now I durst bet there's not
above half a dozen among us as honest as them is. There's not, howiver; and
I know who's yan o' the half-dozen; ye can settle the other five amang you.
Three an' six. Three an nine. Come, be quick. Nay, I'll not wait. I'll tak some
on ye in, ye'll see, if ye don't bid quicker——'
And the scales were knocked down 'mid roars of laughter.
'Here's another good jar, yan o' t' auld fashion, wid a pair o' good lugs to
hod by. A penny for it I have bid; who'll say tuppence? Tuppence for you,
Sarah. It's a real good un, yan o' t' rare auld-fashioned mak, like me an you,
Sarah. I think there's nobbut us two left o' the auld lang-eared breed.'
Then there were quilts sold with a deal of very amusing talk to make
them go off. One was in rags and tatters, but the auctioneer suggested that it
might do for a sick horse or a sick cow. I was listening with great
amusement, and I heard an old fellow beside me say, 'Well, but things is
goin' ower cheap,' and in another moment jerked out, 'A penny—here,' and
was not a little astonished that his bid was not taken. I only mention this to
show you how to the life the whole thing was done, and with what deep
interest the spectators gazed upon the play.
In the second act the plot thickens, and the interest centres in the two
chief actors of the little play—Aaron Hartley, with his apparently rejected
addresses to the statesman's daughter up at Hardcragg Farm, and Betty
Braithwaite. Aaron comes into his mother's kitchen, and, as far as any
Westmoreland man dare let himself go, allows her to see that things are all
up between himself and Betty. He must go off to 'Lunnon,' for he cannot face
living on in the dale now, and all the hay grass but one meadow has been got
in.
'I think I must be going away, muther, for a bit. I don't see but that you'll
mannish finely without me. We've gitten a' the hay in but t' midder, and
that'll not take so lang. It's nobbut a light crop, and then it'll be verra slack
till bracken time, and what, Jonty's match to make a good start with that if I
sudn't be back.'
Just then the farm servant Jonty enters. I believe that he was a coachman
in the village, but he was a consummate actor, and his quaint, silent ways
and the lifting up of his hand and scratching his head behind his ear when
talking were quite admirable. He has had, from youth up, the wish to have
something from London, and he tells Aaron that he's 'wonderin' whether he
could mannish to bring him a "spead" fra Lunnon' when he comes back; 'but
maybe the railway folk wad charge ower dear for carryin' on it.' Aaron chaffs
him out of the idea that a 'spead' made in London is better than one made in
Kendal, and suggests a nice silk handkerchief. 'I never thowt o' that,' says
Jonty; 'that wad be as like as aught.' Libby, the pretty farm servant breaks in
here, and says: 'I wish tha would think on it, and not be so ready with thy
jacket sleeve.'
'Ye'll not can tell me (says honest Jonty) how much t' silk handkercher'll
be until ye've bought it, I doubt; but if ye'll send word I can just send ye the
brass in a letter.'
And, saying, 'Well, I mun see all's reet afore goin' to bed,' the faithful
farm servant leaves the cottage to go round the byre.
But the actress of the piece throughout is Aaron's mother, Mrs. Hartley.
She sits there at her knitting, with her pretty crossover on her shoulders, sair
troubled at heart by her son Aaron's love affair; she drops her stitches, for
her eyes can hardly keep back the tears, but she seems to know intuitively
how much and how little comfort she may give her son, and how far she may
insist upon his confidences. The attempt on her part to make it appear as if it
did not matter at all and that everything will come right in the end is very
bravely done. Fewest words are best.
'Good night, mother,' says Aaron. 'You'll not mind a' I've said.'
'Nay, lad, not I. Good night.'
And so the curtain falls. The second scene in the second act brings Jonty
and Mattha Newby (the village tailor) together. Mattha, as I heard, was the
son of a village tailor. To-day, evidently from his boyhood's remembrances,
he is able to play the tailor's part well. Jonty has been 'wrestling with a dyke'
and torn his jerkin, and Mattha volunteers to mend it. A song was introduced
into this scene which I had written for the occasion. It ran as follows:
Come! sweet April, whom all men praise,

Bring your daffodils up to the Raise,
Bid the delicate warbler trill,
Come with the cuckoo over the hill
Sprinkle the birch with sprays of green,
Purple the copses all between;
Bend the rainbow, and swell the brooks,
Fill the air with the sound of rooks,
Rubies lend, for the larch to wear,
The lambs are bleating, and May is near.
August comes, and the speckled thrush

Sings no more in the lilac bush,
Lambs in the meadow cease to bleat,
The hills are dim with the noontide heat,
From all her hedges the rose is fled,
And only the harebell lifts her head;
But green are the new-mown vales with grass
As if the Spring were again to pass,
And children bring from the far-off fell
The rose-red heather—the bee loves well,
Comes October with breath more cold,

She breathes, and the bracken turns to gold,
The cherry blushes as red as blood,
The rowan flames in the painted wood,
The larch-tree tresses are amber bright,
The birch is yellowing up on the height,
{82}
And over the valley and over the hill
A deep hush broods and the sheep are still,
But rainbow gossamers fill the air,
Tho' the old earth rests, the world is fair.
Now are the mountains winter-white,

Helvellyn shines in the clear moonlight;
The carollers sing, and the Christmas bells
Send sweet messages up the fells;
The old folk meet for their Christmas cheer,
The young folk skate on the frozen mere;
But Spring is coming, the shy buds peep,
The snow-drop moves in her long, long sleep,
The lemon-light shines on the leafless larch,
And the wood grows purple to welcome March.
Fair, how fair, are the changing days
That keep us happy beneath the Raise,
We who, in honour of Oswald the King,
Our 'bearings' still to the Old Church bring,
We who here in the silent time
Act our part and carol our rhyme.
Seasons change, and our hair grows grey,
But merrily goes the Grasmere play,
And two things stay with us all the year—
Love of our valley, and heart of cheer.
It had been prettily set to music by a Grasmere lady, and the two bass
voices chimed in with the two last lines in each verse, and Mattha the tailor
and Jonty the farm servant gave great effect to the song by the sudden
addition of their manly notes. Before the curtain falls on this scene, we learn
that the tourist (to whom we were introduced in the first scene), Mr.
Augustus Mallister, who has heard that she is an heiress, is determined, if
possible, to win the heart of Betty Braithwaite. He knows that Aaron's
absence has made her heart grow fonder. He determines to write a letter,
which shall be posted in London, purporting to come from Aaron, in which
the absent lover declares that he has become engaged to an American girl;
and so the curtain falls.
In the last act, and the first scene, there is a pretty passage, although it is
a pathetic one, between Mrs. Hartley and the girl Betty Braithwaite, to
whom Mrs. Hartley has given Aaron's letters to read—one of them the fatal
letter. In the last scene Norman Braithwaite and his wife, an excellent make-
up, come in to talk matters over, and the letter from London amongst other
things. Jonty remembers how that, on a certain day in August, the tourist
chap, 'the fine gentleman' as he called him, had been spouting out a letter
about an Aaron getting wed to an American, and they at once seemed to see
light and to feel that the letter Mrs. Hartley had received was a forgery. Just
at that time Aaron and Betty enter, and one can tell by a glance at them that
it doesn't matter how many forged letters have been written in London; they
have quite made up their minds to make a match of it. As for Mallister, 'the
fine gentleman,' Jonty breaks in:
'Is it Mallister you're talkin' on? We weant see any more o' yon ne'er-do-
weel here. I met t' p'liceman going off wid him to Kendal.'
Norman: 'T' p'liceman! What for?'
Jonty: 'It seems he's been wanted for some time. He's been up to some
forgery or summat o' that mak.'
Poor Mrs. Rawlinson, 'the fine gentleman's' landlady, enters greatly

distressed that the good name of her house has been compromised by letting
lodgings to a forger. 'Why,' says she, 'I thought he was a gentleman, wi' his
wawmlets to his breakfast, and his late dinners and siclike.' And so with the
assertion that there is nothing to wait for and the wedding shall take place at
Martinmas, the curtain goes down, and all's well that ends well.
During the acting it was quite plain that the actors themselves were as
much interested as those who witnessed the play. 'I was fairly shamed of
myself,' I heard one saying, 'to meet with ye when I came off the last time,
for the tears on my face, but if you had given me a five pound note I could
not have helped it.' Ah, thought I, that was the secret of your acting so well.
Now and again an actor in undress would pass down the room to have a look
at the others as they performed their parts, and to report. They would come
back with much encouragement to their fellow-players with such words as
these: 'Eh, but it's a grand company now, and walls is beginning to stream
now'; and in truth the heat of the room and the consequent vapour bath was a
thing not to be easily forgotten. But if it had been twice as hot, and the hall
had been twice as crammed, and the play had been twice as long, one could
still have sat with real pleasure to see such perfect acting done with such
simplicity and reality to the life. One wished that Will Shakspere could have
come along; how he would have blessed these village folk for their truth and
their simplicity. And how good a thing, thought I, it is, that there should be a
dull time at the English Lakes, so that, without any temptations to
extravagance in scenery or setting of the plays—that would inevitably come
with a wider public,—these natural dale-folk can delight their fellow-
villagers, by dramatic talent as real as it is remarkable.
JAMES CROPPER OF ELLERGREEN.
The pattern life of a public-spirited country gentleman closed, when

James Cropper of Ellergreen, with eye undimmed and natural force
unabated, entered rest.
Come of an old Viking stock,—for his name is found in the Landnama

Bok of Iceland,—he had inherited the best traditions of true philanthropy
from his grandfather, who, with Zachary Macaulay, had worked for the
emancipation of the slave. In him, too, ran something of the spirit of good
old Quaker blood. Whole-hearted Churchman as he was, he loved as the
Friends love, simplicity in form and directness in religious expression. In
earliest days he had cared for social and industrial problems, and the sorrows
of the labouring poor entered into his heart. It was his good fortune to be
able, by becoming an employer of labour, in his paper mills at Burneside, to
face these problems and to become, as he always wished to become, the
father rather than the master of his workmen.
He lived to see Burneside become, under his fostering care, a model

village. He lived to see some of his endeavours, notably his idea of Co-
operative Stores for the people, find acceptance far and wide. The
guardianship of the poor was a sacred trust to him. As Chairman of the
Board of Guardians at Kendal for twenty-five years, and as Vice-President of
the Northern Poor Law Congress, he both learned and taught wisdom.
Almost the last thing he talked with me about was a scheme for caring for
that most helpless class of our poorer friends, the pauper imbeciles of
Cumberland and Westmoreland.
He was in early days a keen politician, and represented his neighbouring

town of Kendal for five years in Parliament. Latterly he had felt that he
could not be a partisan, or rather that partisanship dulled sympathies, and
though it was a grief to him at the time to leave the House at the
redistribution of seats, he found so much more of home politics to hand for
him to do, that he ceased to regret it.
When the County Council in Westmoreland met for its first time in 1888,
they unanimously elected James Cropper to be their chairman, and to the day
of his death his heart was in the work.
The Queen Anne's Bounty Board gave him the chance of helping the
church of his love. The late Bishop of Carlisle, Harvey Goodwin, had no
truer friend; and the present Bishop Bardsley testified to the constant help to
church work in the diocese that this most earnest layman was always willing
to bestow.
But it was the cause of education—elementary, secondary, public school,

or university—that was nearest to his heart. As one of the Governors of
Sedbergh, and Heversham and Kendal Grammar Schools, his counsel was
constantly sought. As a believer in women's education, he founded a
scholarship at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and a bursary at the Edinburgh
Medical School for the training of native Indian women as doctors.
JAMES CROPPER OF ELLERGREEN.
He was Chairman of a Kendal Education Society which anticipated

much of the present endeavour of the Code to secure better instruction for
elementary teachers. He was never so happy as when he could gather the
teachers on the lawn at Ellergreen, and hold counsel with them as to their
future aims and their present progress. The idea of a pupil-teachers' centre at
Kendal was his, and as Chairman of the County Council he was able to lend
it substantial aid. When the Voluntary School Association came into being,
he took up the idea warmly, and personally visited every school within his
area, and made its wants and its difficulties his own.
There was not a day that this public benefactor did not do something to
help his time. And if one asked oneself why it was he had the power to be a
pillar of good in his generation, a kind of beacon and standard for higher and
happier life in all classes of society round about him, the answer seemed to
be that he had a heart which was for ever young, in a body that seemed as if
age could not touch it—that his sympathies were not with the past, but with
the present and the future; that his enthusiasm for the better time coming
never failed him; that he believed that all things work together for good to
them that fear God and keep His commandments.
The grace of this abundant hopefulness flowed out in all he did and said.
'Age could not stale his infinite variety,' because he never grew old. To see
him with young men or little children was to see him at his best. To know
him in his home life was a privilege for which to be thankful.
But deeper than all his spring of hope and sympathy with the young and
the new lay the fountain of poetry at his heart. He did not, I think, write
poetry, but the love of it was a continual presence. He had the poet's heart,
and entered into the poet's mind. For him, the practical public county
magistrate and councillor, the spirit of the innermost was the joy of the
imagination. This was the secret of his swift sympathy with nature and with
man.
We met by appointment in the Tapestry Room of the Spanish Palace at

the Paris Exhibition on October 12th, 1900. He was as cheery as ever.
'I have had a delightful week,' he said, 'I wish all my friends could have
seen this wonderful exhibition. Yesterday I was at Chartres Cathedral. I
never knew what stained glass was before; pray visit Chartres. It is a
revelation to one.' Then he turned to the Spanish tapestries and went with
deepest pleasure through the historic scenes that the needles of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have left on deathless record. He seemed
as young-hearted as a boy, and as fresh in his enthusiasm as if this Paris
Exhibition was the first he had ever seen, but he was seventy-seven and had
seen more than falls to most of us to see, of all this world can show. I did not
know as I shook hands and parted that Death already had shaken him by the
hand.
That night the sharp pain of pneumonia was upon him. I saw him once
again, at the bedside celebration of his last Holy Communion, and then I saw
him dead. His beautiful lace without a wrinkle in it with all the look of
youthfulness come back—but, alas, without the bloom, beneath that ample
crown of snow-white hair which for years past had added such dignity to his
refined and kindly presence. As I gazed, the one thought that came to me
was this, did ever man pass so little weary, so full of keen interest and
unabated enthusiasm after so long a pilgrimage, right up to the doors of that
other world where, as we trust, all his fullest powers shall find full play, or
enter these gates of life with so little pain?
He died in France and his body was borne across the sea and laid to rest
in the valley he held most dear. It seemed as if all Westmoreland and
Cumberland had come to Burneside to do him honour at the homegoing.
The coffin, covered with wreaths, was laid upon a simple wheeled bier in
front of the doors of Ellergreen, and so taken by hand from the house to the
church. It was his wish that no hearse should be used, and that this simpler
method of carrying the body to its rest should be employed. Before the
procession moved, many of those present came up to the coffin to see the
beautiful photograph taken after death; and side by side of it the picture of
his bride taken on her honeymoon. Beneath these two pictures were written
the words from Christina Rossetti's poem:
'Think of our joy in Paradise

When we're together there,'
and beneath this a little note stating that these were the words which he had
begged might be inscribed upon his tombstone.
Those who knew how ideal had been their wedded life, knew also how
through all the long years of widowerhood and the grief of separation that
lent its pathos to his fine face, there had been one sweet music to which he

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COVID-19 and International Political

Theory: Assessing the Potential for

More information about this series at

ISSN 2662-6039 ISSN 2662-6047 (electronic)

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022

Cover credit: Oleksiy Maksymenko/Alamy Stock Photo

COVID-19 will doubtless be remembered as a historic international

The manuscript is finished in August. Things appear to be getting

thought I would not have otherwise explored. For this, I am incredibly

1 Introduction: COVID-19—The Event 1

4.2 Unity in Transition: The Place of Solidarity in Chinese

Introduction: COVID-19—The Event

Abstract In this introduction, Brown outlines the main questions of the

Keywords COVID-19 · International Political Theory · International

Alain Badiou famously characterised an ‘event’ as an unforeseeable occur-

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

not been directly affected by the pandemic in some way; whether it be

terrorism exhausted as a cause for exceptional measures… the invention

Agamben’s remarks received considerable criticism, perhaps unsurprising

Concerns regarding an increasing shift towards authoritarianism have

1.1 The Study of Norms

one’s interpretation a prescriptive argument that the practice ought to be

1.2 The International

the ‘well-ordered’ macro-microcosmic inter-relation between the human,

was established and took on a broadly liberal form in the Nineteenth

1.3 Intellectual History

As Agamben observes, works that trace the transformation of parliamen-

Green’s thought potentially lead to some uncomfortable logical conclu-

1.4 Intellectual History and Natural Disasters

frequently ‘ranking’ it against the ‘most devastating’ epidemics such as the

survey, control and, ultimately, manage a population. ‘The plague-stricken

1.5 Outline of the Book

Chapter 2 will ask if emergency powers necessitate a shift in society

European Journal of Psychoanalysis. https://www.journal-psychoanalysis.eu/

Waltz, K. (1979). Theory of international politics. Addison-Wesley.

Emergency Powers and Authoritarian Shift

Abstract Brown seeks to evaluate whether the use of emergency powers

Keywords COVID-19 · Emergency powers · Carl Schmitt · Hungary ·

The literature on ‘emergency powers’ is predominantly sceptical about

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 21

emergency powers necessarily shift society in an authoritarian direction,

2.1 Commissary and Sovereign Dictatorships

of government designed to solve a very particular problem, and any use

In practice… the commissary dictatorship suspends the constitution in

The ‘sovereign dictatorship’ by contrast:

does not suspend an existing constitution… rather it seeks to create condi-

2.2 Emergency Powers in Historical Context

democracy’ (Tingsten, 1934: 333). Agamben (2008) similarly notes that

for governments to continue to use exceptional measures indefinitely,

2.3 China---A Sovereign Dictatorship

enjoys exceptional powers whose reference point is the vague ‘harmo-

This is crucial as it means China approached the COVID-19 pandemic

2.4 Hungary---A Commissary Dictatorship

measures can be interpreted as having external political goals beyond

WITH THE BLACK-HEADED GULLS IN

There is no part of the Cumberland coast so full of witchery and romance

Then suddenly the silence of the waste was broken by a marvellous

We approached, and walking with care found the ground cup-marked