Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) was a German legal and political theorist renowned for his rejection of liberal democracy and his advocacy for authoritarianism. A conservative jurist during the Weimar Republic, he argued that in moments of existential crisis, the formal rule of law must give way to decisive action by the sovereign. Schmitt’s most famous dictum, “the sovereign is he who decides on the exception,” means that the real power in a polity lies in the ability to suspend customary law in an emergency. In his Political Theology (1922), Schmitt insisted that no legal norm can govern an absolute crisis, so a state must empower a decision-maker to restore order by any means. These ideas were closely tied to Schmitt’s self-styled vision of strong leadership. During the early 1930s, he became a supporter of Adolf Hitler’s regime, even defending Nazi “extra-judicial” violence and anti-Jewish purges from a legal standpoint. Colleagues later nicknamed him the “Crown Jurist of National Socialism” (Reichskronjurist) for the key role he played in giving intellectual cover to Nazism. Schmitt’s legacy is therefore controversial: on the one hand he developed a rigorous critique of parliamentary liberalism, but on the other, he openly advocated for a dictatorship grounded in a friend-versus-enemy politics. By the end of World War II Schmitt was discredited and briefly detained for his Nazi ties, but his writings on sovereignty and emergency powers continue to be studied, sometimes with unease, by scholars today.
Schmitt’s theory of the state of exception holds that when a society faces an extreme danger, normal laws and procedures cannot be relied on; the sovereign must step outside them. In practice, this means suspending certain civil liberties and judicial safeguards so that the state can “normalize” the situation. He explicitly rejected the idea that one can legally pre-define an emergency or its limits since crises are by nature unforeseen. Instead, Schmitt argued, the decision on what counts as an emergency, and how to respond, lies above the law itself. In effect, the sovereign temporarily becomes a law unto itself, restoring order as it sees fit. Unsurprisingly, Schmitt believed this kind of power was not only compatible with but even inherent to democracy: he maintained that a people could democratically empower a sovereign to take such decisions in its name (he famously said that democracy “cannot endow” anyone with this power; it must derive from the unity of the people themselves). Regardless of legal niceties, the real consequence of a state of exception is the reinforcement of executive authority: by defining an “exceptional” enemy or crisis, a government justifies acting above the ordinary law.
More than a century after Schmitt’s writings, his framework finds a literal echo in El Salvador’s current “régimen de excepción” under President Nayib Bukele. In late March 2022, El Salvador was rocked by the worst spike in violence in years – roughly 62 people were killed in the span of a few days, as powerful gangs orchestrated brazen attacks. In response, the legislature (long dominated by Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party) approved an emergency decree at his request. The decree declared a national estado de excepción intended to crush the gangs, and it immediately suspended key constitutional rights for 30 days. Among the suspensions were the rights to free assembly and association, privacy in communications, and the requirement that a person arrested be informed of charges and presented before a judge within 72 hours. In effect, security forces were granted “unrestricted powers” to pursue suspects outside regular judicial oversight. This new regime was not just rhetoric: police and military squads flooded gang-controlled neighborhoods, arresting individuals en masse on the presumption of gang involvement. As Human Rights Watch reported, between March and November 2022 alone, authorities arrested more than 58,000 people, even children and teenagers, under the state of exception.
What began as a one-month emergency was repeatedly renewed by Bukele’s supermajority in Congress. By early 2025, the regime of exception had been extended dozens of times, effectively becoming a permanent security policy. Official reports highlight extraordinary results: in 2024, the country recorded only 114 homicides, a historic low (about 1.9 per 100,000 inhabitants). For context, El Salvador had been the “murder capital of the world,” with thousands of killings per year just a decade earlier. Bukele proudly touted this transformation: his government even claimed that 1.9 murders per 100k were the lowest rate in Latin America. The public has noticed, too: a recent poll cited by the presidency reported roughly 85% approval for Bukele’s administration, and about 9 in 10 Salvadorans endorsed the anti-gang emergency measures. In other words, the Estado de excepción became his signature program, deeply popular at home even as it drew international scrutiny. This international scrutiny has focused on the human rights implications of the state of exception, as well as the potential erosion of democratic norms in El Salvador.
The practical effect of the emergency has been a massive crackdown on suspected gang members but also a vast expansion of police power. Authorities have made tens of thousands of arrests. Government figures (cited by news outlets) now top 83,000 detentions since March 2022. Rights groups highlight that only a fraction of those people have seen trial: more than 90% remain in pretrial detention, with only cursory judicial review. By law, the courts have been authorized to try whole groups of suspects together, rather than assess each case individually. Hundreds of alleged gang leaders have been automatically sent to decades in prison without traditional due process. For example, Congress quickly reformed the penal code on March 30, 2022 to classify all “gang” membership as organized crime: membership now carries 20–40 years in prison, and leaders could get up to 45 years. The age of criminal responsibility was lowered from 16 to 12 years old so that even pre-teens can be prosecuted as criminals. A “gag law” was passed forbidding the media from quoting or broadcasting any message believed to be from gangs. All of these legal changes were rammed through by Bukele’s legislative majority in the name of fighting crime. These changes have significant implications for human rights and the rule of law in El Salvador, raising essential questions about the balance between security and individual freedoms in a democracy.
Activists and families protest detained loved ones under Bukele’s gang crackdown. Banners reading “Libertad a los inocentes” (‘freedom for the innocents’) have become a common sight in San Salvador as reports mount that thousands of people are swept up in the security dragnet. In practice, the state of exception has eclipsed customary criminal law: one leading human-rights group reports that “tens of thousands of arbitrary detentions” have occurred under the decree. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has documented “systematic and widespread” illegal arrests, illegal raids on private property, excessive use of force, and violations of due process. Amnesty International and other observers note that police estimate roughly one in six detained is innocent, a statistic made stark by the fact that the government has already released thousands of those wrongly held. Courts have struggled to keep up: judges report preparing trials of hundreds of prisoners at once, with defenders given only minutes to speak. The result is mass incarceration: the Salvadoran prison population has climbed above 110,000 (according to some estimates). Large new mega-prisons, including the CECOT “terrorism” complex holding up to 40,000 inmates, have been built to house these detainees.
The suspension of rights has also extended beyond the criminal justice system. Civil liberties and institutional checks have been undermined in parallel. In the media and civil society realm, independent outlets and NGOs have felt the pressure. Bukele openly labels dissenters as gang sympathizers: he famously joked that press reports on gangs should be considered criminal “messages of terror.” El Faro, the country’s leading independent newspaper, felt compelled to relocate its offices to Costa Rica, citing dangers and harassment at home. Human-rights defenders and even faith leaders who criticize the security policy face intimidation. A recent Amnesty report warned that the Estado de excepción is effectively being used as “a tool to silence critical voices.”
Domestically, legal guarantees have eroded: even Supreme Court judges who questioned Bukele’s power were removed by the new legislature (ironically using their own two-thirds majority) long before the gang crackdown. Non-governmental organizations note that the relentless pace of “security” decrees and legal reforms has virtually dismantled the rule-of-law safeguards in the Salvadoran constitution. The United Nations human rights office warned in April 2022 that the combination of the emergency and new penal measures “plantean serias preocupaciones” for human rights, especially due process, including for children. Indeed, reports indicate that thousands of minors have been caught up in the dragnet: by late 2022, some 1,600 children and adolescents were in custody, many charged under new laws aimed at gang “recruitment.”
Despite these realities, Bukele’s policies have remained broadly popular at home. Most Salvadorans identify the gangs as the foremost enemy, and many credit Bukele with bringing them to heel. Anti-crime measures and the visible drop in violence have even led to the return of foreign tourists to places like the once-feared capital, garnering public approval. Polls in 2024–2025 regularly showed Bukele with approval ratings in the 80% range, making him arguably the most popular leader in the Americas at the time. Nine out of ten citizens, according to one survey cited by the presidency, supported continuing the state of exception. In Congress this translated to near-unanimous backing: by early 2025 the emergency had been extended more than 30 times and its legal provisions made almost permanent.
Reflecting this popularity, even international allies have praised Bukele’s results. Perhaps most conspicuous is the embrace from the United States under Donald Trump. In April 2024, Bukele became the first Latin American leader formally invited to the White House under the Trump administration, a clear signal of support for his approach. The U.S. also provided millions of dollars to help detain deported gang suspects as part of immigration and anti-terrorism cooperation efforts.
Nayib Bukele stands alongside U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in April 2024. Under Trump, the two governments allied against organized crime.
This image of Bukele with President Trump speaks volumes. On the one hand, it underscores Bukele’s success in reducing violence: official figures show El Salvador with the lowest murder rate in Central America and far below its recent past. On the other hand, the scene also highlights the Schmittian logic at play: the combination of a smiling “strongman” leader and a supportive foreign power suggests that public order has been placed above political pluralism or accountability.
From the standpoint of Schmitt’s theory, Bukele’s turn bears a striking resemblance. Schmitt warned that once a government defines an enemy (in his terms, a “real friend-enemy distinction”), it justifies extraordinary powers for the sovereign. Bukele has explicitly framed gangs as an existential threat to the nation’s survival, thus legitimizing sweeping measures. In the eyes of his supporters, the state’s paramount duty was to ensure security, a conviction Schmitt shared, writing that “the concept of the legal order is based… on a decision,” not on a norm. For example, Schmitt held that legal order ultimately rests on a sovereign’s decision in crisis (not on a preset rule); Bukele’s approach has similarly bypassed established constitutional norms by decree. Even measures that would be unthinkable under normal democracy, mass detention without trial, media restrictions, power concentrated in one executive – are accepted by many Salvadorans as “necessary” in an emergency. This mirrors Schmitt’s view that, in an extreme situation, the sovereign “may decide what should count as a state of exception.” Bukele’s government has acted as if the legislative and judicial branches exist to rubber-stamp its choices; judges who dissent or legislators who balk are overridden, echoing Schmitt’s dictum that the sovereign’s will is ultimately above the law.
At the same time, Bukele maintains the façade of democratic legitimacy: his Nuevas Ideas party won elections in 2019 and 2024, and he has not ruled by decree alone. This tension aligns with Schmitt’s paradoxical vision: he claimed that democracy could survive only if a sovereign could make exceptional decisions for “the people,” but such powers inevitably corrode pluralism. Bukele even boasts of being, in his words, the “coolest dictator in the world,” a self‑description that winks at Schmitt’s apologetics for dictatorship. (Indeed, it was Schmitt’s theory that allowed some Nazis to claim they preserved democracy by acting decisively in an emergency, a stance now unsettlingly resonant when Bukele says he’s democratically backed but acting unbound by standard rules.)
The everyday impact of all this is profound and mixed. On the positive side, ordinary Salvadorans see safer streets: crime is down sharply, extortion rings have been shattered, and formerly dangerous neighborhoods are now patrolled relentlessly. Beaches and malls have reopened, and many families believe they can sleep with the doors unlocked. Tourists who fled during the gang wars are now returning (El Salvador saw a record number of visitors even as the crackdown continued). Economists and investors often note the country feels more stable. But on the negative side, families of detainees endure trauma and uncertainty. Community life has changed: nights are quieter but also tense, as young men are scoured for gang tattoos or contacts. The courts are clogged, and legal representation has broken down – it’s said that lawyers had only minutes to speak for hundreds of defendants. Journalists feel watched; civil society groups fear being labeled as “defending terrorists.” Human rights monitors report overcrowding, poor conditions, and even abuse in the new prison complexes. To take one grim measure: human-rights organizations report over 350 deaths in state custody since the emergency began. Missing are public debates – the “normal” give-and-take of democracy – because this regime treats critics as suspects. As Amnesty noted after 1,000 days of the emergency, Bukele’s version of “peace and security” has come “at the expense of human rights.”
Legal institutions have been reshaped. The Attorney General’s office, the judiciary, and election authorities have all been refashioned to align with Bukele’s vision. Courts no longer impose meaningful constraints on detentions or sentences. Even legislators have ceded, mainly, their oversight role: the assembly now routinely auto-renews the emergency without debate. While the constitution itself formally endures, its spirit has been undermined by the logic that “anything is lawful if it is necessary to save the legal order,” a common Schmittian rationalization. In effect, many Salvadoran lawyers say, the normal separation of powers has collapsed into a decisionist apparatus: law professes to exist, but the government acts as if survival trumps legality.
International observers have warned that this path endangers democratic norms. The OAS human rights commission explicitly urged Bukele’s government to “reinstate the rights and guarantees suspended,” stressing that an emergency “must not become a permanent feature” of policy. Even some U.S. lawmakers have raised alarms about the erosion of due process. Yet Bukele’s base replies that Schmitt himself was right: that in the face of deadly gangs, it is the sovereign (in this case, the people’s elected leader) who must decide how to define the exception.
In sum, El Salvador’s state of exception under Bukele vividly illustrates Schmitt’s ideas, for better or worse. A country in crisis has accepted that standard rules can be suspended, and the President has assumed (with legislative blessing) the role of the decisive sovereign. Many citizens applaud the results, even if it means sidelining courts, the press, and classic civil liberties. Others warn that this is precisely the scenario Schmitt envisioned: once you let the sovereign decide exceptions, the line between preserving order and legitimizing authoritarianism vanishes. As Bukele steps into his second term (itself contested as unconstitutional) and the emergency enters its fourth year, the nation watches whether this Schmittian model of rule will indeed secure a more peaceful society – or whether it will leave lasting wounds on El Salvador’s democracy and rule of law.
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