Description
In securitization theory, exceptional politics is often contrasted with the politics of the everyday, which emphasises the routine operation of 'normal' politics. States of emergency (SOE) suspend the rights of citizens and by their nature disrupt the regular procedures of so-called ordinary politics. However, the normative means by which this 'ordinary' political life is imagined in the literature is often confined to Western, liberal contexts. This dichotomy between exceptional and everyday politics is problematised by recent and historical postcolonial cases. Drawing on postcolonial theory, timing theory, and frame analysis, we comparatively examine recent and successive states of emergency enacted in the English-speaking Caribbean countries of Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago in order to highlight the ways in which emergency politics has become a routinised aspect of everyday life, particularly with regard to law enforcement and public safety. The casual reception of emergency measures in these contexts challenges the prevailing academic and legal scholarship regarding states of emergency in democracies, inviting questions as to why the imposition of lengthy and frequent periods of exceptional politics is received and accepted by these audiences despite shifting rhetorical justification, public dissent, and constitutional challenges.
