ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 looks at how political institutions can be used to suppress the events that interrupt social life or can be transformed through them. The chapter argues that the outcome is heavily influenced by the ethos that infuses political participation. While an ethos of security like Schmitt’s favors decisions made by powerful leaders to secure the given order, an alternative ethos of risk is necessary to transform political institutions to justly accommodate those populations most threatened in emergency situations. The importance of this ethos is shown in current discussions of climate change. A number of states are likely to follow the Schmittean formula by seeking to contain the impacts of climate change through exclusive security regimes. Against this tendency, Wainwright and Mann critique the possible emergence of a new global sovereign to deal with the climate emergency. Alternatively, Bruno Latour has repurposed Schmitt’s decisionism as a compositionist technique for building climate change responsiveness and Catherine Keller has recovered an apophatic approach to the uncertainty and precarity of the climate event from Schmitt’s limiting political formula. This chapter argues that an ethos of risk is a critical component to supplement these responses for resisting potential fascist climate futures.
